Bail laws let young criminals run riot

IT really beggars belief that an 11-year-old who allegedly tried to rob a fish and chip shop at knifepoint had been released on bail 10 times between October and February.

At what point should the boy, whose offending had clearly escalated by the time he reached 57 alleged offences, have been considered an “unacceptable risk”?

The police are at their wit’s end and lawyers in the courtrooms with these children say it’s the State Government’s changes to the Youth Justice Act that have made it so much harder to justify keeping kids behind bars.

The laws were “hastily written”, legal professionals say, in reaction to a major investigation that found kids were languishing in police watch-houses for unacceptable periods of time.

Children being held in watch-houses, some for weeks on end, is unconscionable and it is good that the issue has been fixed.

But the State Government cannot in good faith slap together laws to fix one problem and try to hide when it has inadvertently created another.

That is, the ability for children, like this 11-year-old boy, to run riot in Townsville as their offending behaviour escalates from petty thefts to attempted armed robbery, for months on end.

Marketing laws as “tougher” on kids and sticking to that line is laughable when the people at the front line, who read and use these laws to do their jobs, are saying the opposite.

Blaming the judiciary, who have no right of reply in the media when they are lashed by politicians, is wrong as they are expected to follow the letter of the law, law that is set by parliament.

Knee-jerk policy, as these new laws show, can have undesired consequences.

You would think that this State Government, in power since 2015, would know better by now.