New figures released today by the Productivity Commission reveal more than half of youth offenders released from supervision were re-sentenced for new offences within 12 months of their release.
The figures come as tough new laws targeting young offenders are due to be introduced into Queensland parliament next month.
Deputy Opposition Leader Jarrod Bleijie said the figures were appalling and showed the Palaszczuk Government's approach to youth crime was not working.
"From A to Z the government has failed in every aspect. Whether its education, whether it's trying to get kids out of crime, whether its what's happening in our detention centres," Mr Bleijie said.
Queensland Family and Child Commission principal commissioner Luke Twyford said it was further evidence Queensland needed a different approach to youth justice.
"Detention is the most expensive and least effective way to address youth offending," he said.
"Queenslanders spend $162 million every year on youth detention; that’s more than $1,800 per child every day."
But Deputy Premier Steven Miles said today the state's approach worked for "90 per cent of offenders".
The Productivity Commission's report on Youth Justice Services found 56.8 per cent of juvenile offenders in Queensland aged 10 to 16 at the time of their release from sentenced supervision in 2019-2020, returned to court within a year.
It is the highest youth recidivist rate of any state or territory jurisdiction.
In 2021-22 across Queensland, an average 1,347 young people per day were subject to supervision orders – the highest number in the country.
New South Wales was next highest with 902 children under supervision during the same period.
Highest numbers behind bars
Queensland also recorded a daily average number of 287 people in youth detention in 2021-22, again the highest of all states and territories — NSW was second highest at 190.
Queensland children spent 100,425 nights behind bars for the year to the end of June 2022.
Almost two thirds of those nights — 65,298 — were Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children in custody.
Indigenous children represent less than 10 per cent of the state's population of people aged 10 to 17.
NSW was second highest over that period, with children spending 68,172 nights in custody, with Indigenous children representing 31,175 of those nights.
In Victoria, the total was 44,129 nights, with Indigenous children making up 5,778 of those nights.
The Queensland government's new laws are expected to increase the maximum prison sentence for car thieves to 10 years' jail, and impose tougher penalties for criminals who boast about their crimes on social media.
The laws came in the wake of the stabbing death of Queensland mother Emma Lovell in a Boxing Day home invasion.
Two new youth detention centres are also being planned.
Mr Twyford said early intervention was key to preventing a child from becoming engaged in crime later in life.
"We also need effective responses for children and young people who did not receive early years support and go on to engage in anti-social behaviour," he said.
"Responses must enable the offender to acknowledge their behaviour, take responsibility, and make amends with victims.
"But responses must also address the circumstances that led young people to offend — including disengagement from education, poverty, childhood abuse, exposure to domestic and family violence, family financial stress, housing instability, drug and alcohol misuse, intergenerational disadvantage and systemic racism."
Speaking yesterday, ahead of the figures being released, Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk acknowledged addressing youth crime was not easy.
"Some of these young people have complex backgrounds and some of them we have to help break that cycle of crime," Ms Palaszczuk said.
"It's a very tough call, and the courts need to do their job and the police need to do their job.
"It is a select cohort here that are causing these horrific offences."
"What we are seeing at the moment is these repeat offenders that the Police Commissioner has said we need to focus on."
North Queensland still searching for solution to 'lost generation'
Townsville Mayor Jenny Hill said all levels of government needed to work together to find youth crime solutions, which disproportionately affect Indigenous communities.
"In the north, it’s predominantly Indigenous (offenders), with about 20 per cent non-Indigenous involvement,” Cr Hill said.
"We need to work together to try and find real solutions to deal with these issues because all we are doing is creating a lost generation."
Police in north Queensland earlier this month wrapped a year-long operation targeting young offenders involved in break-ins, burglary and car theft, which resulted in the arrests of nearly 1,000 juveniles — many of which were repeat offenders.
"When I have spoken to some of the people involved, they say that some of these kids need to be in Cleveland (Youth Detention Centre) for more than three months so they can access real programs as part of rehabilitating," she said.
"There is a real issue here. How long do you detain people, when do you start putting them into programs to try and rehabilitate them, and are we sending them back into community into the same lifestyle that encourages reoffending?"
Last week, Griffith University criminologist Ross Homel said the Queensland government and opposition were trying to one-up each other as they called for tougher laws.
"We are currently engaged, in Queensland, in a political death spiral in terms of youth justice policy," Dr Homel said.
