Damien Atkinson, KC, a barrister and Youth Advocacy Centre chair, says no Queenslander should be a victim of crime, but harsher penalties also won’t solve the situation.
“If you just respond by being tougher on crime you fill the detention centres but when those young people are eventually let out, they’ll just be angrier than when they went in,” he said.
Does anyone have the stats to back up one way or the other as to whether youth crime has increased or not?
Locking what are essentially children up in detention constantly isn’t the answer, but at the same time I’m getting a bit sick of people’s shit getting stolen and there appearing to be no consequences for the offender. No real idea on age, but they look young in security camera footage that gets posted. Younger than me anyway. Get off my lawn, etc etc.
Be mindful that the ‘footage that gets posted’ is an easy way to get a skewed view of things, particularly if browsing local community groups. ‘Concerned citizens’ are often those well-to-do enough to afford security cameras and valuable items in the first place lol.
wayward kids are a result of wayward parents are a result of decades of paternalistic and xenophobic domestic policy.
The issue isn’t the kids, it’s the situations they’re brought up in as a result of being marginalized their entire lives.