The Auditor-General’s scathing report into youth crime and early intervention is a damning indictment of Labor’s youth crime failures and suggests Labor is throwing money into programs without evidence and without assessing if they’re working.
Under Labor, early intervention has become a $1.3 billion stab in the dark that has only made the Queensland Youth Crime Crisis worse.
Shocking findings from the Auditor-General’s include:
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A 64% increase in the average daily number of serious repeat youth criminals, over four years to 457.
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55% of all youth crime in Queensland is committed by serious repeat youth offenders.
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18% of serious repeat offenders had no rehabilitation to divert them from crime.
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Reoffending has increased by 5% to a staggering 69% under Labor.
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Critical early intervention program contracts were being offered at the request of Ministers, and not based on evidence.
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Cleveland Youth Detention Centre was in lockdown for 294 days in 2022-23, preventing kids from receiving education and rehabilitation.
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Serious repeat offenders leaving detention are only supported for the first 72 hours, they aren’t receiving intervention or support to turn their lives away from crime.
Despite repeatedly claiming the Palaszczuk-Miles Government’s one goal was to reduce repeat youth crime, they have actually made repeat youth crime worse, and overseen a new generation of hardcore youth criminals.
Shockingly, nearly one in five serious youth offenders aren’t being given any rehabilitation or intervention, and Labor has no idea how early intervention programs are performing.
They’re handing out contracts on a whim, without evidence, without KPIs and with no idea what’s happening.
Queenslanders are living and breathing the Youth Crime Crisis and paying a high price for Labor’s youth crime failures.
Last year the LNP wrote to the Auditor-General asking for an investigation to shine a light on Labor’s early intervention programs after Labor admitted they didn’t know what was working and what wasn’t.
With so much money spent on early intervention, Queenslanders deserve to know why it’s failing so badly.
Victims deserve to know they have a Government that is working to keep them safe, but clearly this Palaszczuk-Miles Government is all talk.
Only the LNP has the Right Priorities for Queensland’s Future, including making our community safer by delivering gold-standard early intervention to divert youth from lives of crime before they become repeat offenders.
SOURCE: Queensland Audit Office Report - Reducing serious youth crime