By Jeremy Cook
Almost half of Warwick Stanthorpe Today readers said they or an immediate family member have been a direct victim of youth crime in a statewide survey which revealed heightened fears on the issue.
In an exclusive youth crime survey run by Today News Group throughout regional Queensland, just 13 per cent of readers in the Southern Downs ranked youth crime “low” as an election issue while 86 per cent felt it ranked either “high” or “very high”.
Queenslanders will head to the polls on 26 October with the issue having dominated political debate during the Labor government’s latest four year term in office.
Survey results showed 27 per cent of readers felt youth crime had become worse compared to three years ago while a further 13 per cent felt it had worsened in the past five years and 13 per cent said it had compared to a decade ago. Only 13 per cent answered saying there had been no difference.
When asked what the biggest problems with youth crime were, approximately 73 per cent of readers responded saying bail and sentencing provisions in court were too weak while 10 per cent felt there weren’t enough prevention programs in place. A further 10 per cent felt there was no real youth crime problem at all.
One respondent commented further, saying stats showed youth crime had not increased. Statewide crime stats released by Queensland Police in July showed the rate of youth offences had reduced by 6.7 per cent during the last financial year. The total number of unique youth offenders had also reduced by two per cent during the same time and by 18 per cent since 2012/13, the stats showed.
“What has increased is the media scaremongering about it,” the survey respondent wrote.
Several others commented, blaming “poor parenting” and a lack of consequences for what they felt were the biggest problems with youth crime.
About 70 per cent of respondents said they had increased their own security measures in the past 12 months, but when asked in which areas they felt most concerned for their safety, 36 per cent answered “nowhere”.
Similar trends were reflected across other surveyed regions which included Beaudesert, Bundaberg, Wide Bay-Burnett, Goondiwindi, Gympie, Ipswich, the Lockyer Valley, Longreach, Roma and Noosa.
Approximately 49 per cent of respondents throughout those regions said they or an immediate family member have been a direct victim of youth crime while 74 per cent said they personally knew someone who had been a victim. Just 10 per cent ranked the issue as either “low” or “moderate” in the lead up to next month’s election.
Warwick resident Rob, who opted against giving his full name, said his daughter’s home had been targeted by a group of juvenile burglars more than 12 months ago.
“They broke in and [they’d] broken gun safes and things like that. [They] took her car, they trashed it and raced around,” he said.
“There was a lot of money that was taken out. There’s probably $100,000 worth of stuff they sold here and there.”
Rob said his daughter and her partner were in the middle of financing a house build before the incident scuppered their plans. The couple’s baby daughter would later catch the flu and tragically pass away.
He didn’t necessarily blame his niece’s death on the robbery but was left wondering, what if?
“It’s just one thing on top of another,” he said
“The robbery is one thing and then whether you can blame that … that’s life in some ways.
“To have that sort of taken away, to lose a life, that’s pretty tragic.”
