Queensland Leads Australia in Youth Incarceration

Queensland has the most children locked behind bars nationwide, with its youth detention system failing to break the “cycle of incarceration” of juvenile offenders. On March 14, the child death review board criticised Queensland’s youth detention system noting the state also leads the nation in the number of nights young people spend in custody, with 100,425 nights compared to just 44,129 in Victoria. Its report (pdf), examining 60 of 72 juvenile deaths in 2022-23, uncovered the “preventable” suicide and drug overdose deaths of two Indigenous boys who spent a combined 600 days in detention. One boy had spent a horrifying 80 percent of his time in isolation before his death, while the other spent more than 100 days alone before passing away....