This week, First Nations human rights leaders filed a complaint with the United Nations (UN) over Australia’s youth justice policies, calling them “draconian” and “discriminatory”.
The move was and argued that laws in place across Australian states and territories are perpetuating the “cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment of children” by legal systems, noting in particular the use of spit hoods, solitary confinement and strip searching.
The complaint, which was lodged with the UN’s Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, follows an escalation of ‘tough-on-crime’ rhetoric over recent months by some Australian politicians and media commentators, labelling youth crime a “crisis”.
In Victoria in particular, the issue has dominated recent debate in reporting from parts of the media and in parliament, even prompting a petition led by FM radio hosts calling for bail reform for repeat offenders.
“Our state is facing a crime crisis that has never happened anywhere in this country at this level,” the state’s Opposition leader, Brad Battin, said in a grievance debate in parliament in February.
“We read about it in the news each and every day. We see it on our streets. We see it in the fear and hear it in the voices of those that have been let down by our broken justice system,” he said.
Youth crime is out of control.
In a marathon sitting last month, what Premier Jacinta Allan called the “toughest” bail laws in the country, “putting community safety first”.
The legislation mirrors changes that have come into effect in Queensland and the Northern Territory in the past year, which some have described as punitive.
This week, the Queensland government announced a further 20 juvenile offences to be introduced under its “adult crime, adult time” laws.
But criminologists and legal and human rights experts argue such changes lack scrutiny, won’t work to prevent crime and will disproportionately impact First Nations communities.
Others have questioned whether the crackdown on youth crime is proportionate or being weaponised for political gain.
For Gunggari person Maggie Munn, director of the First Nations Justice team at the Human Rights Law Centre, it feels personal.
“As an Aboriginal person, I know firsthand what laws like this do to our communities, the increased resourcing that goes to police as a result of laws like this, the punitive nature of law and policy that is weaponised against Aboriginal people,” Munn tells SBS News.
Youth crime rates: what do the figures say?
Renee Zahnow is an associate professor in criminology at The University of Queensland. She says, historically, young people have been at the centre of many “moral panics”.
But broadly speaking, they are responsible for a “small amount” of crime when compared to adults.
“What we’ve seen generally over the years is that crime among young people, like all crime, has been declining,” she says.
“We had a major decline when COVID-19 hit … and what we saw afterwards was an uptick as we returned back to the normal trend [pre-COVID levels].”
According to the latest recorded crime statistics from the Australian Bureau of Statistics in March, there were 340,681 offenders proceeded against by police across the country in 2023-24 — a 2 per cent decrease from the previous year and the lowest number since the collection series started in 2008-09.
Youth offender rates per 100,000 persons aged between 10 and 17 years from 2008 to 2024. Source: SBS News / Australian Bureau of Statistics
Of these offenders, 46,798 (or 14 per cent) were aged between 10 and 17 years old — a decrease of 3 per cent from the previous year.
Accounting for population change, the youth offender rate dropped from 1,847 to 1,764 offenders per 100,000 people in that age bracket.
Over two-thirds of youth offenders were male, and the most common age was 16 years. Those aged 14-17 made up around 82 per cent of youth offenders.
Zahnow says the recent focus on youth crime in Australia is inconsistent with offending rates, which are declining overall.
“A lot of the time, youth become a focus, and we use this sort of language to talk about them because when we think about the groups in the community that actually can influence what’s in the media, what’s being said publicly, and who can vote, it’s not youth,” she says.
They’re a pretty safe bet in terms of elections. I’m not saying that’s what is happening now, but historically, they’ve always been scapegoats.
As an expert in criminology, Zahnow is concerned about the impact tough-on-crime rhetoric is having on young people.
“The language we’re using at the moment is very detrimental in terms of thinking about other youth issues, such as mental health, suicide,” she says.
“If the adults in the community are very derogatory about youth, where will they go for help?”
Victoria, a separate case
While youth offending rates are dropping nationally, they have risen in Victoria.
The latest figures released from the state’s Crime Statistics Agency (CSA) show the number of alleged offences by 10-17-year-olds increased 16 per cent in 2024 to 24,550.
A separate statement by Victoria Police said this was the highest level since electronic records started in 1993.
For 18-24-year-olds, there was a 15 per cent increase.
Police figures show 7,414 children were processed by police 24,550 times, with the total number of “repeat offenders” increasing by 4.9 per cent. The number of unique child offenders decreased by 3 per cent.
“In simple terms, there are less children committing crime, but those who continue to offend are doing so more frequently,” the statement said.
Victoria’s parliament passed what Premier Jacinta Allan called the “toughest” bail laws in the country. Source: AAP / Joel Carrett
The increase follows an overarching trend in offending across all age categories in Victoria, with the total number of offences rising to 605,640 last year — an increase of 16 per cent.
Dr Tyler Cawthray, an assistant professor in criminology at Bond University, says this must be considered in the context of the overall downward trend in crime rates since the 1990s.
“It’s a problem in context, but it’s a problem on the back of improvements over a long period of time as well,” he says.
While Cawthray says there has been an “uptick in public concern around media coverage and perceptions of increased crime”, this doesn’t necessarily reflect the actual volume of crime.
Zahnow elaborates, saying: “We feel like it’s suddenly gotten worse, but it’s actually just that we can see it more.”
‘Knee-jerk’ bail changes condemned
In response to elevated public concern, the Victorian Labor government introduced its Bail Amendment Bill, which passed parliament in the early hours of 21 March.
The bill removes the principle of remand as a last resort for children, reintroducing bail offences and making community safety an overarching principle for bail decisions.
“After listening to Victorians, to victims of crime, to the advice of Victoria Police and to other representatives across the justice system, we needed to bring about a jolt to the system,” Allan told reporters.
We are seeing too much of a pattern of behaviour.
Allan has conceded that more people will be remanded under the laws but said there is capacity in the system to handle the influx.
An open letter signed by 93 organisations, representing Aboriginal affairs, human rights, community health, family violence prevention and the legal sector, condemned the “knee-jerk” changes.
The group says the reforms will needlessly lock away more people before trial or sentencing, which will disproportionately affect Aboriginal women and children experiencing poverty, family violence and mental illness.
Munn says the laws “undo the positive reforms” made in 2024 as a result of the coronial inquest into the death of Gunditjmara, Dja Dja Wurrung, Wiradjuri and Yorta Yorta woman Veronica Nelson, who died in custody after being arrested for shoplifting offences and being refused bail.
The coroner recommended changes to the state’s bail laws — tightened in 2018 — calling the system a “complete and unmitigated disaster” that has a “discriminatory impact on First Nations people resulting in grossly disproportionate rates of remand in custody, the most egregious of which affect alleged offenders who are Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander women”.
Munn stresses everyone in the community deserves to feel safe.
But they say the changes defy recommendations from , the state’s first truth-telling process, which was set up to examine historical and enduring injustices experienced by First Nations people in Victoria.
“It’s in the face of everything the Victorian government has heard through the Yoorrook Commission as well as countless other children’s commissioners, reports and recommendations and the international minimum standard for young people and Indigenous people who are in contact with the legal system,” Munn says.
When they [these politicians] talk about community safety, and the need for laws like this to ensure community safety, I’m really curious to understand which communities they’re talking about — because it’s not mine.
A ‘national trend’
Among those critical of Victoria’s recent reforms is National Children’s commissioner Anne Hollonds, who says the laws are not based on evidence about how to prevent crime by children.
She says Victoria is the latest jurisdiction — following Queensland and the Northern Territory — to “respond to youth crime in a reactive way”.
“The NSW and South Australian governments are also in the process of implementing discredited punitive measures, moving in the opposite direction to that of other developed countries,” Hollonds said in a statement after the bill passed parliament in March.
“Instead of building a roadmap for reform based on evidence of how to prevent crime by children, these governments are reacting to public concern with short-term punitive measures that do not prevent crime by children, because crime by children is a symptom of underlying issues that we are failing to address.”
Munn believes the changes are indicative of a national trend, saying: “It’s really scary.”
Zahnow has also observed a broader crackdown on youth crime moving towards more punitive measures but says this isn’t the full story. Restorative justice programs designed to change offenders’ underlying patterns of behaviour have been shown to be more effective, she says.
“The literature for decades has shown getting tougher on crime does not work,” she says.
“I think the big problem is not that there’s not some good stuff happening too, but we’re sending out the wrong message to everybody [with adult crime, adult time].
“What does this say about our values, about our communities, and about our culture?”
Queensland’s laws ‘not compatible with human rights’
Queensland Premier David Crisafulli took similar laws — including his ‘adult crime, adult time’ policy — when he claimed victory for the Liberal National Party.
The ‘Making Queensland Safer’ laws, now in effect, apply adult penalties to children for a range of offences and remove the principle that detention should only be used as a last resort. They also require courts to focus on the impact of an offence on a victim as the main consideration in sentencing children.
“Every Queenslander acknowledges that at the moment there is a youth crime crisis and we’ve got to do something about it. And we are fulfilling what we promised people and that is putting victims first, victims front and centre in all we do, in early intervention, rehabilitation purposes and consequences for actions,”.
Queensland Premier David Crisafulli took similar laws — including his ‘adult crime, adult time’ policy — to the state’s election last October. Source: AAP / Russell Freeman
In a statement of compatibility, Attorney-General Deb Frecklington said part of the bill was “not compatible with the human rights protected by the Human Rights Act 2019” and that amendments “will lead to sentences for children that are more punitive than necessary to achieve community safety”.
“However, I consider that the current situation with respect to youth crime in Queensland is exceptional and therefore the Human Rights Act 2019 (HR Act) will be overridden in respect of these amendments.”
The new laws, which passed the Queensland parliament last December, Ann Skelton, the chairperson of the UN’s Committee of the Rights of the Child, agreed that several provisions violate international law.
“We do not agree that the so-called exceptional circumstances warrant what will be a flagrant disregard for children’s rights under international law. We also don’t agree that it will make Queensland safer,” Skelton said on X in November.
Cawthray says it is not uncommon for governments to use an “emergency set of circumstances” to justify an “extraordinary response”.
“The erosion of those rights is not a great direction to be moving in, in terms of responding to circumstances,” he says.
More broadly, he says changing bail conditions can contribute to the growing remand population in youth detention centres and adult prison facilities. A remand prisoner is someone who has been charged with a crime but hasn’t been sentenced yet, and has either been refused bail or not met bail conditions.
“Australia across the country has experienced, broadly speaking in the adult prison system, about a 10 per cent increase across every jurisdiction in the proportion of people within facilities that are on remand,” Cawthray says.
“These are people who haven’t gone to court, there’s been no finding of guilt yet, yet they’re making up a larger and larger proportion of the populations within these custodial facilities.”
The other issue from his perspective is recidivism — or reoffending — rates in relation to youth detention, which he notes can be compounded through detention. In Queensland, recidivism rates sit between 80 and 90 per cent, according to Cawthray.
“If you send them to youth detention, you might send them for longer, you might have some effect on the crime rate for a period, but at the end, they might come out and re-offend,” he says.
“It might address the community’s immediate public safety concerns … but it won’t necessarily address the longer-term pattern of offending that’s happening as a result of going in and out of youth detention.”
Why are politicians responding in this way?
In Cawthray’s view, the recent wave of politicians cracking down on youth crime with tougher laws partly comes down to “a desire to do something immediately and quickly”.
“They want to be seen to be responding to the electorate, to be responding to the public,” he says, adding spending money on corrections is not necessarily “particularly attractive” and “less visible”.
Dr Andrew Hughes, an Australian National University lecturer who specialises in political marketing, says that as a political issue, youth crime represents a “box ticked” in the minds of some voters.
“As an actual societal issue, we still haven’t fixed and corrected it … but it’s one of these issues where politicians need to show they’ve done something, that they’ve engaged, listened, and then taken action,” he says.
While there may be community support for such a response, it’s underpinned by a lack of understanding of the complexities of youth offending.
“In a way, it’s an easy one for politicians to go after,” Hughes says.
This issue gets a lot of headlines, but not a lot of scrutiny. And that’s modern politics, sadly.
“We’re not stopping to go, ‘Hang on, is this really an issue? How much of an issue is it? … And if so, what are we doing about it, and how are we putting the work into this space?'”
How will youth crime factor into the federal election?
While criminal matters are predominantly dealt with by the states, Munn is concerned about how the federal election campaign will unfold, with youth crime being a “hot button issue” in a number of jurisdictions.
Opposition leader Peter Dutton, a former police officer, said in a 2024 press release: “Youth crime is out of control in many parts of our country and more needs to be done to combat it.”
Among the 12 priorities in a document outlining the Coalition’s pledges to get ‘Australia back on track’ is safeguarding against “rising threats domestically and internationally”.
“National security and community safety will be the first priority of a Dutton Coalition government to ensure that Australians feel safe and united,” the document says.
“That’s why we have announced measures to tackle local crime, such as working with the states and territories to deliver uniform knife laws and limiting and restricting the sale and possession of knives to minors and dangerous individuals.”
Opposition leader Peter Dutton said in a 2024 press release that youth crime “is out of control in many parts of our country”. Source: AAP / Lukas Coch
Last March, the Coalition moved a private member’s bill that sought to make it illegal to post social media material glamourising violence and criminal activity. It did not proceed.
“We know this is an issue he [Dutton] wants to be connected to in people’s minds. It’s an issue where he wants you to perceive him as being strong about and decisive on, because that’s one thing we identify as wanting in a politician,” Hughes says.
“He’s building a narrative up which supports his broader profile of being that style of leader to contrast himself completely differently to the prime minister [Anthony Albanese].”
While Labor under Albanese has not to date included specific policies on youth crime as part of its campaign platform, Hughes expects the issue to feature in this election.
Cawthray hopes, for the most part, that youth crime remains at the state level.
“The federal government does a lot of other things that it’s probably more productive for them to be talking about and debating, in terms of housing and forms of social policy that have indirect effects on crime as well.”
— With additional reporting by the Australian Associated Press
