Government quarterly data (from December 1, 2024 to February 28, 2025) shows there has been an 8.2 per cent fall in car theft and an 8.4 per cent fall in break and enters since the Liberal National Party’s ‘adult crime, adult time’ laws were passed in December.

The Government has adopted a hard line on juvenile crime since being elected in October.

The crime data shows the legislation is working as intended, Premier David Crisafulli said on Monday.

“They’re green shoots ... we have a long way to go,” he told Seven’s Sunrise program.

“What that translates to is about 450 fewer Queenslanders had their car pinched and 1033 fewer people had their homes broken into.

“We are serious about driving down what is a youth crime crisis in this state.”

Under the first tranche of the laws, children as young as 10 face the same maximum sentences as adults for 13 offences, including murder, manslaughter and grievous bodily harm.

The state’s Human Rights Act was overridden to pass the legislation. 

Under the former Labor Government, the act was overridden twice so it could pass its own youth justice laws.

A second tranche of the LNP government’s expanded legislation was introduced to state parliament in early April, covering up to 33 offences.

Those bills are expected to be debated and passed in May. 

Government statistics also show there has been a 32 per cent decline in cases against children charged with one of the offences initially tabled in December.

The number of juveniles charged is down by 756 cases against the same period in 2024. 

An advocate has hit out at the legislation as the Liberal National government looks to expand the tough new laws.

Queensland Council of Social Service chief executive Aimee McVeigh called for the release of expert legal advice used by the government to back the expanded laws.

The State Government has relied on an independent expert legal panel’s advice for the legislation expansion – advice McVeigh said had not been shared.

“We have not had the benefit of reviewing or considering that advice in order to then provide feedback in relation to the bill,” she told the parliamentary committee on Monday.

McVeigh said the laws did not address the cause of youth crime, with Queensland incarcerating more children than any other jurisdiction in Australia.

Labor MP Meaghan Scanlon also called for the expert legal panel to provide public submissions during Monday’s parliamentary committee hearing. 

The Government’s ‘tough on youth crime’ platform and resultant recent ‘data’ also contrasts the evidence on how best to address the root causes of youth offending, according to Amnesty International Australia.

All expert, longitudinal evidence produced in Australia, it said in October last year, demonstrates how punitive, carceral responses to youth offending does not reduce rates of recidivism to make communities safer.

On the contrary, Amnesty said, findings from investigative and research-based inquiries into youth offending, including Victoria’s Inquiry into Youth Detention Centres, the Disability Royal Commission and the 2024 ‘Help Way Earlier!’ report from the National Childrens Commissioner, shows that criminalisation and incarceration of children serves to exacerbate the impacts of trauma and alienation that can lead to offending.

“Despite the popular rhetoric, imprisoning children and treating them as adults in the justice system has never been shown to make communities safer or reduce crime rates,” Amnesty International Australia’s Indigenous Rights campaigner Kacey Teerman said at the time.

The LNP’s 'adult crime adult time’ policy puts Queensland in direct violation of international human rights standards, including Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), to which Australia is a signatory, which says that children should only ever be incarcerated as an absolute last resort and for the shortest time possible. 

“Queensland has an obligation to protect children’s rights, which includes prioritising their rehabilitation and supporting their development through safe, community-based alternatives,” Teerman said.

The chief executive of support organisation Sisters Inside, said in December that incarcerating Queensland’s most vulnerable children under the ‘adult crime, adult time’ laws instead of investing in reform, only paves the way for a life of crime.

She said the children themselves are victims, but the Government has not included them in the rhetoric of “victim numbers”, instead deciding to throw kids into prison without support.

“Locking up children for longer is never going to work as it does not give any healing to the victims and children are the victims,” she said.

“This is just fuelling our love affair with caging children.”

Crisafulli also responded to taunts by some youths over the laws on social media.

“To those young thugs taunting online I say, bring it on,” he said.

“There are going to be more changes, and your days of running amok will be over. Every change will be about strengthening the laws and I’m not going to be intimidated by it.”

(with AAP)