‘When you treat a damaged child like an animal, they will behave like one – and if you want a monster, this is how you do it.’ – Children’s Court President Hylton Quail, February 2022.
Labor and the Liberals are disturbingly aligned on youth justice. On February 21, 2023, the Queensland Labor government, alongside the then-Liberal state government, blocked UN inspectors from accessing detention centres. Why? No excuse is good enough.
We know Peter Dutton’s backwards stance – but regionally, the LNP says almost nothing at all. Meanwhile, Labor’s approach is riddled with contradictions. Their latest campaign promotes a $500,000 investment in youth crime prevention, yet in August 2024, they cut funding for diversion programs. Now they expect applause for more surveillance cameras?
This isn’t prevention – it’s politics.
Most incarcerated youth are on remand, not yet convicted of a crime. We’re condemning young people to a cycle of incarceration in a system that breeds reoffending. It’s well documented: repeat offending is often a failure of the system itself.
Shouldn’t prison funding depend on the success of preventative and rehabilitative programs – both inside and outside custody?
For four decades The Echo has printed the stories some people loved, some people hated, and some pretended not to read. If you want us to keep telling the truth, the real truth, not the sugar-coated version. We’ll need your support to keep the presses rolling. 
