Queensland LNP Promises Isolation for Youth Offenders That Assault Staff

Brisbane Youth Detention Centre at Wacol in Brisbane, Australia, on Aug. 24, 2020. Glenn Hunt/Getty Images

Queensland Liberal National Party (LNP) Leader David Crisafulli has kicked off its campaign to unseat the Labor government of Premier Steven Miles by announcing a policy of mandatory solitary confinement for any young offender who assaults workers in youth detention despite research indicating this increases reoffending rates.

The party’s campaign launch was heavily focused on what Crisafulli claimed was the state’s “youth crime crisis.”

Labor has made similar claims, despite statistics showing that overall offences committed by young people have been trending downwards since 2010.

The opposition leader was introduced by Cindy Micallef, the daughter of stabbing victim Vyleen White, who was allegedly killed by a teenage boy in a shopping centre in Brisbane’s west.

Dubbed “detention with purpose,” Crisafulli said the policy would include “minimum isolation periods for youth who commit assault in detention.”

But in August, Queensland’s Inspector of Detention Services Anthony Reilly raised concerns about the use of “separation rooms” at youth detention centres and the fact that children in Queensland have fewer legislated safeguards than adults or those held in other states.

He called for the Youth Justice Act to be amended to “address this inequity and protect children.”

He said his inspection had shown children being kept in “small rooms with bare cement floors and walls covered in graffiti. They are empty, with no toilet, running water, bed or seat.”

High Reoffending Rate

The Queensland Family and Child Commission also released a report this year which concluded that the percentage of young people who reoffended within 12 months of being released from the state’s youth detention centres was between 84 and 96 percent in 2023.

It concluded that “assumptions about the rehabilitative prospects of detention are unjustified.”

Crisafulli later told reporters that children were often isolated due to insufficient staff numbers and that tougher punishments for assaulting workers would help to attract more staff, which would reduce the extent to which the punishment was used.

An LNP government would also make education compulsory in youth detention and introduce a “privilege-based system” with things such as televisions in cells being used to reward good behaviour.

“If the state is taking over responsibility for their care, we must make sure they use their time to become better people, not better criminals,” he said.

“[Youth crime] is a topic this government hasn’t wanted to speak about the entire campaign,” he claimed.

Queensland Premier Steven Miles rejected the LNP plan, saying, “Mandatory solitary confinement will not prevent a single crime.

“The fact is, education is already mandatory in our detention facilities,” he said.

“What we’ve been doing over time is increasing access to schooling and increasing access to health care services because so many of the young people entering our detention system are suffering from mental health, alcohol and drug abuse issues.”