Queensland LNP Promises Isolation for Youth Offenders That Assault Staff

Queensland Liberal National Party (LNP) Leader David Crisafulli has kicked off its campaign to unseat the Labor government of Premier Steven Miles by announcing a policy of mandatory solitary confinement for any young offender who assaults workers in youth detention despite research indicating this increases reoffending rates.
The party’s campaign launch was heavily focused on what Crisafulli claimed was the state’s “youth crime crisis.”
Labor has made similar claims, despite statistics showing that overall offences committed by young people have been trending downwards since 2010.
The opposition leader was introduced by Cindy Micallef, the daughter of stabbing victim Vyleen White, who was allegedly killed by a teenage boy in a shopping centre in Brisbane’s west.
Dubbed “detention with purpose,” Crisafulli said the policy would include “minimum isolation periods for youth who commit assault in detention.”
But in August, Queensland’s Inspector of Detention Services Anthony Reilly raised concerns about the use of “separation rooms” at youth detention centres and the fact that children in Queensland have fewer legislated safeguards than adults or those held in other states.
He called for the Youth Justice Act to be amended to “address this inequity and protect children.”
It concluded that “assumptions about the rehabilitative prospects of detention are unjustified.”
Crisafulli later told reporters that children were often isolated due to insufficient staff numbers and that tougher punishments for assaulting workers would help to attract more staff, which would reduce the extent to which the punishment was used.