The State Budget delivered a mix of good and bad news for marginalised young people. So far what we can gather is that there is no increase in funding for youth support services. This is very disappointing as the existing services have been struggling to cope with demand for their services. 

This means the Queensland Government is still investing under $20 million to support marginalised young people across the State. There was also no sign of operational funding for YANQ which will keep us struggling and leaving the youth sector without a funded peak body.

Other bad news includes:
. providing $8.1 million to complete the recommissioning of the Borallon Correctional Centre which commenced in 2014-15

. commissioning Borallon Correctional Centre to deliver 492 extra beds for young prisoners in south east Queensland. Additional funding of $145.3 million over four years has been provided for the operations of Borallon Correctional Centre to provide additional prison capacity

. The department will also invest $6.4 million of the $9.3 million project to upgrade the security management system at the Brisbane Youth Detention Centre.

. Additionally, the department will invest $18.6 million on the renewal, maintenance and minor works of courthouses and youth justice facilities.

. $26.4 million to increase bed capacity at Brisbane Youth Detention Centre 

However there were also some good news in the budget, in particular: 
. providing $2.4 million ($23.6 million over four years) to reinstate court ordered youth justice conferencing and explore options for an enhanced model of youth justice conferencing, based on contemporary evidence in the restorative justice field

. developing a comprehensive juvenile justice policy that outlines early intervention, rehabilitation, demand management strategies, and future infrastructure requirements

The Government is also repealing amendments made in 2014 to the Youth Justice Act of 1992 so that:
. repeat offenders' identifying information cannot be published, other than in exceptional circumstances (for example, when a juvenile offender is found guilty of a heinous offence) and at the court's discretion

. breach of bail is no longer an offence

. all children's law matters are held in a closed court

. childhood findings of guilt for which no conviction was recorded are inadmissible in relation to adult offences

. the principle of detention as a last resort is reinstated

. 17-year-olds who have six months or more left to serve in detention are not automatically transferred from detention to an adult corrective service facility

. finalising an independent evaluation and implementing related Government decisions for the youth boot camp trial.

And there is $8.7 million to reinstate courts such as the Murri Court and Special Circumstances Court.

There are other budget measures in education, housing, health and other portfolios which also impact on marginalised young people and we will release a more comprehensive analyses of these budget measures in the near future.

Youth Affairs Network of Queensland (YANQ) is appalled by the recent announcement by Queensland Government of their intention to recommission the Borallon prison and to transfer almost 500 young people to this facility.

It is very concerning that the Queensland Labor Government is taking a regressive step, mimicking the LNP and following their plan to expand Queensland’s prison system. All credible research indicates that prevention is a much more cost efficient way to deal with youth offending and will also result in creating a safer community.

Instead of adding almost 500 new beds to the prison system, the Government should be looking at releasing all non-violent prisoners who are in prison for minor offences and those on remand. The hundreds of millions of dollars that will cost the Queensland tax payer to operate the Borallon facility could be spent on rehabilitation and integration in the community. 

Borallon prison is more a death camp than a training facility. Farrin Vetters was just 26 years old when he hung himself in a Borallon jail cell in October 2011. He took a sheet and hung it from what Queensland Coroner Terry Ryan recently described as a hanging point. 

Coroner Terry Ryan’s findings into Mr Vetters death were released less than two months ago. Mr Ryan noted it was "tragic" that Mr Vetters had access to a hanging point 20 years after the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody recommended their removal. He stated that there are no plans to invest the millions of dollars required to eliminate the hanging points in nearly half of Borallon’s 492 cells. 

Mr Ryan said given suicidal thoughts were often fleeting or periodic, "barring access to a ready means of suicide should be paramount in any prevention strategy”.

Borallan was shut down soon after Mr Vetters' death in a long-planned decommissioning of the site and prisoners were transferred to other Correctional Centres.

In November 2011, the Labor Shadow Correctional Services Minister Bill Byrne said, “if Borallon were to re-open, it would be an act of desperation by an administration losing control.” 


CONTACT: Siyavash Doostkhah, Director, Youth Affairs Network of Queensland

Phone: 0407 655 785           Email: director@yanq.org.au

                                                                                        MEDIA RELEASE
                                                                                           8th July 2015


Youth Affairs Network of Queensland (YANQ), the Peak body for youth issues in Queensland has expressed strong concern about the announcement today by Jo-Ann Miller Minister for Police, Fire and Emergency Services and Minister for Corrective Services of the intention by the Palaszczuk Government to recommission the Borallon Correctional Centre.

Mr Siyavash Doostkhah, Director of YANQ slammed the proposal as an assault on young people and the Queensland community. “ this is what Queensland was getting under LNP and why the LNP got booted out, on one hand the government cries poor when it comes to funding youth services focusing on prevention and on the other hand they find $145.3 million to create an additional 500 bed prison” he said.

“All research indicates that funding youth services to assist young people in the community is the most cost efficient strategy to deal with youth issues. Funding youth services can bring much tax savings to the community as well as making the community safer. Youth Work has showed a much higher success rate than prisons” said the YANQ Director.

YANQ is very concerned about the overcrowding in the prison system and in particular the level of violence inflicted on young people in prisons. However, we are gobsmacked that the Labor Government is following a similar path to the LNP by considering expanding the prison system. “We need to look at decarceration strategies and investing this type of money in providing support and education to young people in their communities not behind razor wire” said Mr Doostkhah. 

As the peak body representing young people and youth services in Queensland we find it absolutely unacceptable that the total funding allocated to youth support services across Queensland is currently less than $20 million dollars and at the same time we are planning to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on the territory end of the spectrum housing young people in a new prison which will not only cost the tax payer financially but also in terms of community safety.

CONTACT: Siyavash Doostkhah, Director, Youth Affairs Network of Queensland

Phone: 0407 655 785           Email: director@yanq.org.au