The Australian state of Queensland has passed laws that will subject children under the age of 10 to the same penalties as adults if convicted of crimes such as murder, serious assault and breaking and entering.
The government says the tougher sentencing rules are in response to “society's anger at crimes committed by young offenders” and will act as a deterrent.
But many experts have pointed to research showing that tougher penalties do not reduce youth crime and can actually exacerbate it.
The United Nations has also criticized the reforms, saying they ignore conventions on children's human rights and violate international law.
The Liberal National Party – which won the state election in October – has made the rules a hallmark of its campaign, saying they put the “rights of victims” before the “rights of criminals”.
“These laws are for all Queenslanders who have felt unsafe and been victims of youth crime across our state,” Premier David Crisafulli said after Parliament passed the bill on Thursday.
In the lead-up to the vote, both political sides claimed Queensland was in the grip of a youth crime wave, and that a more punitive approach was necessary to combat the issue.
But data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics shows youth crime has halved in Queensland over the past 14 years, reaching its lowest rate in recorded history in 2022, and has remained relatively steady since then.
Figures from the Queensland Police Service and the Australian Institute of Criminology also show a clear downward trend.
The new laws, which the government has dubbed “Adult Crime, Adult Time”, list 13 offenses that will now be subject to harsher prison sentences when committed by young people, including mandatory life imprisonment for murder, with a non-parole period of 20 years.
Previously, the maximum penalty for young offenders convicted of murder was 10 years in prison, with life imprisonment only considered if the crime was “particularly heinous”.
The laws also remove “detention as a last resort” provisions – which favor non-custodial orders, such as fines or community service, for children rather than imprisonment – and will enable judges to consider a child’s full criminal history when sentencing.
The Queensland Police Federation described the changes as a “leap forward in the right direction”, while new Queensland Attorney-General Deb Frecklington says they will give courts the ability to “better address patterns of crime” and “hold people accountable for their actions”. .
But in short, Frecklington also noted that the changes were in direct conflict with international standards, that Indigenous children would be disproportionately affected, and that more young people were likely to be detained in police cells for long periods because detention centers are full.
Queensland already has more children in detention than any other Australian state or territory.
Prime Minister Crisafulli said on Thursday that although there may be “short-term pressures” his government had a long-term plan to “provide a wide range of other detention facilities and different options”.
Australian Children's Commissioner Anne Hollands described the changes as an “international embarrassment”.
It also accused the Queensland government of “ignoring evidence” that “the younger a child has contact with the justice system, the more likely they are to go on to commit more serious offences”.
“The fact that the provisions (of the bill) target our most vulnerable children makes this retreat from human rights even more shocking,” she said in a statement on Wednesday.
Other legal experts, who gave evidence to a parliamentary hearing on the bill last week, said the laws could have unintended consequences for victims, with children less likely to plead guilty in light of harsher sentences, leading to more prosecutions and longer delays in prosecution. The court.
