Children as young as 10 will face adult prison sentences in Australia after outrage over young offenders
Children as young as 10 who have committed crimes will face the same sentences as adults if found guilty, as Australia’s Queensland state passed a new law to tackle youth crime.
The government said the tough measure is in response to “outrage within the community over crimes committed by young offenders”, and believes it will act as a deterrent.
After the bill was passed on Thursday, Queensland Premier David Crisafulli said: “These laws are for every Queenslander who has ever felt unsafe and been a victim of youth crime in our state.”
The new laws, labeled by the government as ‘adult crime, adult time’, list thirteen crimes that will now be subject to harsher prison sentences when committed by minors.
This includes mandatory life imprisonment for murder without parole for twenty years.
The maximum sentence for young people who committed murder was previously ten years, with life imprisonment only considered if the crime was ‘particularly heinous’.
It comes after the Liberal National Party – which won the Queensland state election in October – made the regulations a central issue of its campaign.
In the run-up to the vote, politicians had claimed Queensland was suffering a surge in youth crime and a tough approach was needed to combat the issue.
Queensland state has introduced new laws allowing children as young as 10 to receive adult prison sentences as it aims to reduce youth crime
Queensland Premier David Crisafulli welcomed the passage of the bill
The Australian Bureau of Statistics revealed earlier this year that 289,657 Queenslanders had been victims of crime in 2023, with more assaults and home burglaries than any other state.
Due to an increase in the number of assaults, assaults, kidnappings, robberies, blackmail, burglaries and thefts, the total number of victims increased by 13 percent compared to the previous year.
Meanwhile, a report from the state auditor general found that 55 percent of all juvenile crime in the state between 2022 and 2023 was committed by “serious repeat offenders.”
It also reported that the average daily number of serious repeat offenders had increased by 64 percent, from 278 in 2018-2019 to 457 in 2022-2023.
But experts have criticized the move, claiming tougher sentences do not reduce the number of crimes committed by young people.
The United Nations has since rejected Queensland’s laws, calling them a “blatant disregard” for children’s rights.
Before the bill was passed, the chairman of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child said in a video posted on X on Saturday: “We do not agree that the so-called ‘exceptional circumstances’ justify a blatant disregard for children’s rights under international law.
“We also disagree that this will make Queensland safer.
“We urge the Queensland Government to uphold the principle that children should be treated differently from adults in the criminal justice system.
“We also urge them not to deviate from the long-standing and universally accepted principle that deprivation of liberty of minor offenders should be a measure of last resort and for the shorter appropriate period.”
Despite Queensland’s tough stance on young people, data from the Queensland Police Service and the Australian Institute of Criminology shows crimes committed by young people have declined.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics had also said that youth crime in the state of Queensland has halved in the past fourteen years.