The delivery of this week’s State Budget saw no investment into any new methods to combat youth crime across the State as the juvenile crisis continues to spiral out of control.

Mount Isa, a town of around 21,000 people, was again consumed over the weekend by staggering amounts of car thefts.

ABC North West Queensland reported that last weekend in Mount Isa five youth offenders were arrested and charged with a total of 19 offences in relations to the theft of six vehicles, some of which were stolen from private businesses, whilst others were stolen from a local caravan park.

Katter’s Australian Party leader and Traeger MP Robbie Katter has done the math.

“In the past six months, the Mount Isa local government area has had a total of 75 car thefts,” he said.

“Mount Isa has estimated population of 21, 000 people, so approximately one in 280 people has had a vehicle stolen in these recent months.

“In the past six months, the Brisbane local government area has had a total of 1,972 car thefts.

“With an estimated population of 1.27 million people, meaning approximately one in 644 people have had a vehicle stolen during this time.

“In a rural city the size of Mount Isa, people living there expect the ‘small town’ lifestyle.

“How we have gotten to the point that your car is more than twice as likely to be stolen in a rural town, the size of Mount Isa, than it is in Brisbane is beyond me?

“If this doesn’t signal the alarm bells on the regional youth crime crisis, then I don’t know what will.”

Mr Katter said the Palaszczuk Labor Government was buying into their own spin when it comes to the crime crisis.

“People should not have to accept that this is the way of life now – we should not have to settle for these statistics no matter where we live,” he said.

“We’ve got our police force out there, endangering their own lives and doing everything they can to have these criminals locked up, only for them to be let out with a slap on the wrist at most, committing again in the blink of an eye.

“We need a circuit-breaker that cuts at the heart of the cultural and social issues driving these trends – at the KAP, an alternative sentencing model for recidivist youth offenders is part of our solution.”

The KAP had lobbied for the inclusion of a $15 million pool of funding to trial Relocation Sentencing in Queensland, as is occurring in Western Australian, in this year’s State Budget but it has not materialised.

The KAP’s Relocation Sentencing policy would extract sentenced youths from crime-heavy hotspots and relocates them to a remote facility to rehabilitate, reform and learn valuable life and work skills.

20220621 – RK media release – Mount Isa engulfed by car crime chaos