Wayne Shaw was about eight when he broke into a stranger's home for the first time.
He was on a trip to northern New South Wales with other kids who had been placed in the care of BoysTown — a residential school for disadvantaged boys.
His surrogate siblings showed him how to break through the mesh in a toilet window of a house, offering easy entry for an agile kid.
"There was no reason for it," he explained, more than 30 years later.
"I just did it … broke into a house that had a shitload of cannabis and pinched it."
It was the beginning of a lifetime of criminal activity that Wayne Russell Shaw, now aged 40, says was made worse by his experience in Queensland's juvenile legal system.
As the state grapples with a youth crime crisis that has allegedly seen four Queenslanders killed by teenagers since December, Wayne spoke candidly to the ABC about the system that "destroyed" his life.
Currently serving a suspended jail sentence for driving offences, Wayne admits he is far from reformed, but hopes telling his story will urge lawmakers not to impose tougher sentences on young offenders.
"I'm happy to speak out … because I'm not scared to tell people about my life … eventually, you know, we all live and we die," Wayne said.
"Somebody's got to tell the truth and let people know that it's not all fun and games."
Growing up without a plan
Dreams of becoming a doctor or a builder were never on the cards for Wayne.
"I didn't even think of a plan for myself," he said.
"When I was doing school and they said: 'What would my life goals be?' It was to have kids to 25 different women, get a Harley Davidson [motorbike] and take off."
He trained as a welder, but making an honest living wasn't his bag.
"I had a constant survival strategy on how I could steal things and make money. It was never about going and working and having a solid job," he recalled of his early adulthood.
Wayne says he was abandoned by his mum when he was five and he and his siblings left their home at the Tallebudgera Caravan Park on the Gold Coast.
They went to live with their father, who he says was in and out of jail.
"[Mum] told us she was going to get peaches and cream and we never saw her again," he said.
About age eight, Wayne ran away with another boy to live under Wheedons Crossing Bridge on the Nerang River.
"We grabbed a few blankets off people's clotheslines and stole a whole heap of clothing and started a fire in front of us," Mr Shaw said.
"There was a [supermarket] around the corner and early in the morning they used to load the bread and milk. We used to go at 6am every day and steal it."
Detention makes kids better crooks
Wayne ended up in BoysTown Beaudesert, run by De La Salle Brothers, that was closed in 2001 and later embroiled in allegations of abuse.
Wayne was later paid compensation for sexual abuse at the school.
He ran away several times and was eventually taken into custody as a 13-year-old, after stealing a car while he was living on the streets in Surfers Paradise.
"I was scared at first [of going into juvenile detention] but I started to learn different things, new stuff," he said.
"You hear what other people have to say inside a jail cell and let's be honest, all of a sudden, you're copycatting or you're hanging with those exact same people when you get out.
"I even found out about new drugs I didn't even know about. It was the point I started smoking cannabis. They had heaps of it in the [juvenile detention centre]."
He said after being in care institutions he was "already used to being around 50 other males every day of my life" and quickly settled into "juvie".
"Did it make me a better criminal? Yeah, I think it did," he said.
"Did I get worse after it? Most definitely."
Falling into a pattern of crime after jail
By his early 20s, Wayne said he began peddling drugs and joined bikie clubs.
By age 32, he'd been sentenced in court 17 times for possessing drugs, assaults and obstructing police.
He'd served stints behind bars and been handed parole and fines.
In 2018, Wayne was jailed by the Brisbane Supreme Court for three years after being convicted of drug trafficking, but was released on parole.
One year later, he was handed a jail sentence for serious assault.
Wayne said after serving periods in custody, it was hard to change the pattern of offending.
"My thought was [after jail] to go back to exactly how I'd always been … selling meth, getting on it," he said.
At times over the years, he was able to get clean but it never lasted long.
"Believe it or not, at one stage I was working at a kindergarten as their maintenance man," Wayne said.
"I really enjoyed it because I had bunch of kids who thought I was the best and watched me build things but during that time I messed myself out on meth and was incarcerated."
He said the idea of going to jail never deterred him as a child, it just made things harder.
"I'm telling you, locking a young person up and not giving them bail, they're going to want to retaliate on that basis," he said.
"I know it's f***ing wrong to steal a car but to be locked up and not given any help when you get out … every time the police see you afterwards they don't care if you are doing something wrong or not, that's how it feels.
"We need to be able to build some type of avenue where these kids who are doing these things … they should do defensive driving or show them videos of the families' lives they've destroyed … it's better than sticking them in incarceration."
Need for a holistic approach
Wayne never learnt to read or write and is currently living under the house of a friend.
He said if the Department of Child Safety, police and support agencies had all worked together better, things might not have turned out the way they did for him.
"I had a father who wasn't able to help me. When I was committing crimes there was no one saying: 'Do you need somewhere to stay?' or, 'Do you need somewhere to live or something to eat?'" he said.
"Just because a juvenile is committing the crimes, sometimes there are more things going on in life and they don't want to express it.''
Now, he's trying to change that since the birth of his own child.
"I've destroyed a lot of [my child's] life because a lot of it I've been incarcerated and now I want to change that," Wayne said.
Government rolls out 'comprehensive response'
This week, the state government will introduce more severe punishments for violent offenders, with sentencing to take into account an accused's previous criminal activity and bail history.
Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk described the reforms as "our most comprehensive response to youth crime in this state".
Two new youth detention centres are also expected to be built.
The raft of new laws will impose more severe punishments for violent offenders, including increasing the maximum penalty for car theft from seven years in jail to 10.
There will be a more severe penalty of 14 years if the offence is committed at night, with violence, or if the offender is armed or damages property.
A child charged with another offence while out on bail must now prove why they should be released, and they can be kept in custody if they cannot.
"These are the toughest youth bail laws in the country. Since the [current] legislation took effect, we have seen more serious repeat offenders being held in custody, and for longer," Youth Justice Minister Leanne Linard told the ABC last month.
Department of Youth Justice senior executive director Michael Drane told a community crime meeting held in Toowoomba this week there are about 400 high-end juvenile offenders committing crime across the state at any one time.
He said these teens represent about 10 per cent of the juvenile offenders, but commit more than half of the crimes.
"It is an emerging trend that everyone is grappling with, we are not unique and certainly Queensland is not unique," Mr Drane said.
Individual treatment for young people
Griffith University School of Criminology senior lecturer Troy Allard told ABC individualised treatment for youth offenders is one solution.
"[Detention] can be used for the purpose of incapacitation for a very small proportion of young people, for their own safety or the safety of the community," Dr Allard said.
"[For] what we kind of refer to as prolific or chronic offenders.
"But I don't think it can be an effective deterrent for most serious violent persistent offenders, unless their home lives are improved so that they are better than detention."
In 2015, he conducted research into sexual recidivism among youth in a remote communities.
It involved clinicians providing assessments and treatment for boys aged 17 years old or younger.
Dr Allard believes that a similar program that includes sessions with the offender and involves families and community could work for "high-risk" youth.
He said a program could be cost-effective, with the 2015 research costing an average of $63.01 per day.
While new figures from the Productivity Commission show the average cost per day for a child in Queensland youth detention is $1,879.80.
Dr Allard said "investing in people" can work but involves years of building relationships.
Intervention should begin with children aged below five years old, he said.
"So that you're not going to see any effect of that for at least five to 10 years," he said.
"With the three-year election cycle, it really is not smart to have short-term solutions or to try and implement short-term solutions."
The criminologist said a holistic solution to youth justice would include academics, experts and all levels of government working together.
He said police should not be the focus of community programs.
"I think that in itself can be problematic," he said.
"They must be involved, of course, but if your key contact is a police officer and the young person knows they're in control of the programme there is already a distrust there."
