Repeat young criminals are running rife in Queensland with the latest Children’s Court statistics showing 10% of young criminals are responsible for almost half of all youth crime and one in five supervised justice orders were breached in the past year.
Shadow Attorney-General Tim Nicholls said the youth crime crisis was affecting Queenslanders every day.
“The numbers speak for themselves,” he said.
“The State Government is losing control of youth crime in Queensland.”
The annual report shows an increase in kids before the courts with charges for motor vehicle theft up 62.5%, acts intended to cause harm up 56%, and unlawful entry with intent up 37%.
Alarmingly, the report also revealed almost 260 girls aged 14 years and under were sexually assaulted by a child offender.
Mr Nicholls said the State Government must get serious about cracking down on youth crime.
“We have repeatedly called on the State Government to restore breach of bail as an offence for young offenders,” he said.
“If breach of bail was an offence and a young offender broke any one of their bail conditions, police would be able to intervene early.
“The offender would be back in the system rather than allowed on the street to offend again.”
“Labor has failed to get youth crime under control, failed to protect our community and failed to do right by our children and this latest report proves it,” he said.
“Repeat offenders should not be allowed to put the safety of Queenslanders at risk.
“It’s time the government started listening to Queenslanders and strengthened our laws.”
