Cops help young crims to avoid jail

CHILD criminals are being diverted from courts at such a high rate that just one in three are facing the judicial system, new police figures reveal.

The Queensland Police Service annual report said of the 11,113 unique young offenders dealt with by police in 2019-20, there was a diversion rate of 62.5 per cent, or 6943 youths.

The rate in which youths were diverted exceeded the rate of 57.3 per cent in 2018-19.

It comes as youth crime is set to feature in the state election, particularly in North Queensland.

Parties have announced crime policies to sandbag those seats, with Labor this week spruiking 2025 new police it plans to deliver over five years.

The statistics also come on the back of juveniles being packed into watch houses and full youth detention centres, which led to an overhaul of how youths were dealt with.

Police Commissioner Katarina Carroll has favoured a diversionary approach and says most child offenders do not reoffend and never see the court system again after diversion.

Lawyer Bill Potts said diversion was working and children should not be held in watchhouses and detention.

“I appreciate with an election coming up that there are real concerns in communities, in particular Townsville, about what we hear often about the revolving door of the watchhouses and the prisons,” Mr Potts said.

“My concern with that, particularly with kids, is we don’t want them graduating from the primary school of crime to the high school of crime to the university of hard knocks.”

Ms Carroll this year said fewer children were offending and most were cautioned.

“But what we’re finding is that a small cohort of 20 per cent, the high-end offenders, are actually offending more and they are the most difficult to deal with,” she said.

Police developed a “protection admissions scheme” in 2019, which addressed legal limitations requiring a young person to admit to offences before being diverted to support services.