Queensland's 'Youth Crime Crisis' is a scare campaign

This rant was originally written as a Facebook post. It's not as finely crafted as most of the other articles I publish on this site, but it seemed to strike a chord with a lot of people on social media, so I figured I'd republish here given how relevant it is to the upcoming state election...

Just a reminder that Queensland’s so-called ‘youth crime crisis’ is a made-up moral panic.

The whole thing is a deliberate scam intended to:
— scare people into voting for the LNP
— distract us all from the real reasons so many of us are anxious and struggling to get by- boost ratings and subscriptions for the mainstream media
— secure payrises for senior police bureaucrats
— increase profits for private prison operators
— and maybe generate a few more sales for the home security industry.

It’s a beat-up.

Crime rates in general are dropping across Queensland.

Average statewide crime rates specifically for perpetrators under 18 are also dropping.

It’s true that in a few, specific neighbourhoods around the state, police are targeting young people for various reasons, which is leading to more charges being laid against children for certain kinds of offences. But the mere fact that police have charged a person with multiple offences doesn’t necessarily mean they’re guilty of all those charges – it just means cops are looking for excuses to charge children in order to meet their monthly targets. Higher rates of people being charged with offences doesn’t necessarily mean the actual rate of people assaulting each other or stealing each other’s stuff is rising – it just means cops are trying to look like they’re doing something.

I should note that in recent years there have been increases in the reported rates of some specific offences relating to domestic violence and stalking, which I presume relates to the fact that society is starting to take DV a bit more seriously (I don’t see LNP politicians talking much about this though).

I should also note that after covid restrictions eased, there was a slight, temporary increase around 2 years ago in the number of young people committing certain kinds of offences – such as hooning and stealing cars – mostly in regional and outer-suburban areas. This isn’t very surprising when you realise that we’ve designed entire towns and neighbourhoods so that you can’t get around without a car. Maybe if kids had other practical, affordable means of transportation to access social and recreational activities, this would be less of an issue.

But even those minor, localised, short-term increases seem to have been a brief blip, and now Queensland rates are dropping again.

There is no ‘youth crime epidemic’ in the state of Queensland.

I repeat: crime rates in Queensland have been trending downwards fairly consistently.

And yet at the same time, it seems that more people are worried about crime, even though they are objectively safer and less likely to be the victims of crime than they were 10 or 15 years ago.

I think some of the main things that have changed in the last few years are:
— a whole bunch of older people learned how to use social media and are TALKING more about local break-ins etc. because they’re bored and their adult children don’t visit them as often
— there’s more sensational video footage of crimes being committed (both because everyone has smartphones now, and because home security cameras got cheaper and more widespread), which makes it easier for the mainstream media to run sensational stories
— the Labor and LNP policy agendas have become so similar that they don’t have much else left to argue about, and so now conservative politicians are trying to win votes by making people more afraid of teenagers

If there are certain areas around Queensland where some people are committing more property crimes than they used to – shoplifting, break-and-enter etc. – I think that needs to be understood in the context of the very real corporate greed crisis (what some people call a ‘cost of living crisis’), where ordinary people are struggling to afford the basic essentials of life because big corporations are ripping us all off, and people’s daily expenses have skyrocketed. If people are stealing because they have no money left over after paying the rent and the power bill, imprisoning them is a pretty unjust and ill-advised response.

There’s an abundance of evidence and plenty of real-world case studies from Australia and elsewhere around the globe showing that locking more people up doesn’t actually make communities safer. Locking up more children definitely doesn’t help things in the long-run.

If you’re genuinely worried about ‘crime,’ the solutions are straightforward:
— caps on rent increases and more investment in public housing, so everyone can afford a stable, secure home and people aren’t stuck in over-crowded, stressful households
— free and frequent public transport for communities right across the state
— properly-funded, community-controlled support services so that people who are struggling can afford the things they need to get back on their feet and live a good life
— better education systems with well-funded schools that support a diverse range of learning styles
— genuinely free healthcare that’s accessible to everyone, including decent mental healthcare

That’s what a real, effective crime prevention policy actually looks like... Giving people affordable access to the stuff they need to live a meaningful, happy life.

But like I said, crime is dropping anyway.

There are plenty of other crises in Queensland right now that we should be much more concerned about. I can completely understand why people feel so anxious when money is tight, the climate’s more unbalanced, homelessness is rising, and wars over land and resources are breaking out all over the place.

But don’t let the bastards scare you into blaming kids for the messed-up society we’ve created for them.

Politicians are just trying to distract you from what a shitty job they’ve done of serving the long-term public interest. Don’t fall for their games.

Oh and before someone responds with “That’s easy for you to say Jonno, but try talking to the people who’ve actually been affected by crime!” I should point out that two years ago, I was the victim of a violent assault on the street by a stranger. I was hospitalised with a broken nose, chipped teeth and concussion. I got pretty messed up. But I still don’t think locking up the mentally ill, highly-intoxicated middle-aged bloke who assaulted me would’ve solved anything or made my community any safer.

On the off chance that anyone reading this has actually lost a loved one to a more serious violent crime, I am so so sorry for what you're going through. There are no words sufficient to describe that kind of grief. But I hope you won't allow your pain and loss to make you into a tool for vote-chasing politicians and profit-hungry prison businesses.

Throwing more young people into the bottomless pit of the so-called 'justice' system isn't going to reverse anyone's loss or suffering. It just creates more pain and sadness.

Screw this ‘tough on crime’ nonsense. I'm sick of it.