By Suzi Quixley for the  Coalition Against Inappropriate Remand (CAIR)

Inappropriately detaining young people in custody puts community safety at risk - repeated studies indicate that the younger a person is when they are first detained in custody, the greater the likelihood that they will go onto re-offend and end up in adult prison.  74% of the young people in custody in Queensland Youth Detention Centres on 30 June 2006 were on remand - i.e. they were being held in custody before a finding of guilt had been made or before their sentence had been finalised.  This is largely unnecessary and jeopardises both the safety of the community and the future chances of success in life for the young people detained. 

YANQ Media Release

The Youth Affairs Network of Queensland (YANQ) Director, Siyavash Doostkhah, has labelled the LNP's proposed amendments to the Juvenile Justice Act as socially irresponsible. The proposal to remove the notion of detention as a last resort demonstrates the failing of LNP to understand that the aim of the Juvenile Justice system should be to rehabilitate young offenders, rather than fast-track them to a life of crime as adults. It is high time for the LNP to adopt progressive policies looking at Juvenile crime as not something to be punished but rather something to be solved.

By Suzi Quixley for the  Coalition Against Inappropriate Remand (CAIR)

Inappropriately detaining young people in custody puts community safety at risk - repeated studies indicate that the younger a person is when they are first detained in custody, the greater the likelihood that they will go onto re-offend and end up in adult prison.  74% of the young people in custody in Queensland Youth Detention Centres on 30 June 2006 were on remand - i.e. they were being held in custody before a finding of guilt had been made or before their sentence had been finalised.  This is largely unnecessary and jeopardises both the safety of the community and the future chances of success in life for the young people detained.

By Ann Harding, Quoc Ngu Vu and Alicia Payne, NATSEM

Available evidence suggests that the past decade has generally been one of rising earnings and prosperity for the majority of Australians. Broadly speaking, wage earners in both richer and poorer suburbs appear to have shared in the rising tide of prosperity. Although they did increase in real terms, incomes at the bottom of the income spectrum rose somewhat more slowly than for the middle between the mid 1990s and 2002-03, resulting in higher poverty rates and rising income inequality.

The Autumn 2007 Newsletter of Kids Helpline focuses on domestic violence and Internet safety.

Kids Help Line Newsletter Autumn 2007 (pdf, 306.21 kb).