juvenile dentention

Human rights advocates and legal experts have dismissed Queensland opposition leader David Crisafulli's proposal to try juvenile offenders as adults based on the nature of the crime.

The "Adult Crime, Adult Time" policy, unveiled at the Liberal National Party convention, was aimed at sentencing minors for life if they commit a crime as heinous as murder. However, Human Rights watchers argued that the policy will violate the state's Human Rights Act and international conventions on children's rights, The Guardian reported.

Furthermore, the proposal has sparked concerns about whether the policy will be effective enough to mitigate crime rates and rehabilitate young adults. Experts have argued that it might just do the opposite, such as giving rise to youth crimes, poverty and posing mental health challenges.

As of right now, adult murderers in Queensland are obligated to serve a life sentence without the possibility of parole for up to 30 years, depending on the victim.

"The concept of 'adult time for adult crime' appears to directly contradict section 33 of the state Human Rights Act," remarked Michael Cope, president of the Queensland Council of Civil Liberties. "The section mandates that a child convicted of an offense should be treated 'in a way that is appropriate for the child's age.'"

"The complex psychosocial factors leading young people into repeated encounters with the criminal justice system are unlikely to be resolved by a policy crafted around a simple rhyme scheme," Cope added.

The Law Society's president, Rebecca Fogerty, highlighted that charging juvenile killers under the same criminal code as adults may go against the Human Rights Act and perhaps ignore the act's requirements for treating them appropriately when they are in the legal system.

"The imposition of a mandatory life sentence on a charge of murder for a juvenile offends conventions of human rights, it offends provisions of the Human Rights Act. And it's fundamentally wrongheaded, because the court cannot take into account the child's individual circumstances, which is essential to being able to produce a just outcome according to law," she said.

When asked about Crisafulli's policy, Steven Miles, the premier of Queensland, brushed it off as just another clumsy opposition slogan.

"They're going to have to answer for their policies ... but what strikes me is after all this waiting, all this anticipation, all David Crisafulli came up with is another four-word slogan," Miles said, per ABC.