The Queensland government has come under fire for its youth crime crackdown after a report revealed children are spending more time in custody waiting for court proceedings than they would serving sentences.
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The Youth Justice Act amendment, introduced in April, was singled out in the Queensland Children's Court annual report for increasing the number of kids being held in custody for extended periods.
Queensland Greens MP Michael Berkman slammed the crackdown after the report revealed children were waiting in custody an average 309 days - or more than 10 months - for their cases to be heard, longer than most sentences.
"This report shows the impacts of the government's harmful, knee-jerk Youth Justice reforms are already being felt," he said in a statement.
"They say they're keeping kids in watchhouses because detention centres are overcrowded, but at the same time making new laws to keep kids locked up even beyond the length of their sentence."
Since the reforms were passed in April, including a presumption against bail for youths for certain offences, the report said there were 233 children in custody in the state on any given day this year, up from 208 in 2020.
Court President Deborah Richards said it was also a "concern" that youths who have been previously named in child protection proceedings were also more likely to appear before the children's court.
Mr Berkman said the state government must look at ways to help break the cycle for young offenders.
"The factors that can lead a child into the criminal legal system are often the same as those that can lead them into child protection - abuse, trauma, poverty and exposure to violence," he said.
Mr Berkman said the crackdown was "contributing to the over-incarceration of First Nations people as adults, and to the ongoing crisis of First Nations deaths in custody" after the report revealed Indigenous youths made up 46 per cent of all child defendants.
But the state government is standing by its reforms, with a spokesperson for Minister for Youth Justice Leanne Linard claiming they boosted accountability for serious repeat offenders.
"Approximately 10 per cent of young people commit almost half of all offences in any year," the spokesperson said in a statement.
"Whilst higher rates of young people in custody is a clear consequence of the tightening of bail laws, it is only the first part of the story for these young offenders.
"Hard working staff from Youth Justice, and a range of partner agencies, like police, work tirelessly to hold young people accountable for their offending behaviour, to challenge anti-social behaviours, and to deliver interventions designed to teach young people how to make positive choices in the future to turn their lives around."
Australian Associated Press
