Academics canvassed byBrisbane Times warned of a spiral of offending:once children came into contact with punitive systems of youth justice,they were more likely to become the very repeat offenders the community so loathed.

While the experts did not dismiss a youth crime issue or seek to diminish victims’ experiences,a core frustration remained that government policies and rhetoric shifted with the fast-moving pendulum of the news du jour.

Queensland Labor went from denouncing prisons for children in 2018 (“we can’t continue to keep doing the same things over and over and expect a different result”) to pronouncements of “tough laws made even tougher” in December last year.

The “tough new initiatives” – including new detention centres,harsher maximum sentences for car thieves,and reduced avenues to bail – were “evidence based”,according to Police Minister Mark Ryan.

We asked for the evidence he was referring to,but did not receive a response.

Few political minefields draw such public emotions and political contortions as youth crime.

Zahnow believed this was in part because many people with children felt a sense of expertise when it came to discipline;others an innate concern about their own children being swayed off the tracks.

Williams said youth crime also played to the “folk devil” mindset,whereby wayward young people were among outsiders to be feared,alongside “southerners,socialists,drug users,whatever”.

In Queensland,several high-profile deaths – including those of Emma Lovell,Robert Brown and Scott Cabrie – have galvanised community anger,particularly towards the 17 per cent classified as serious repeat youth offenders.

Research compiled in Queensland’s crime reports noted youth offending,despite making up a small portion of total crime,was generally more visible than the closed-door or dark-cornered escapades of adults.

Often this visibility was fed by the young people themselves boasting of their crimes on social media. Community Facebook pages,too,reposted videos or members’ own footage,creating easy content for television news and packaged montages.

“We call this cultivation theory,” Williams said.

“[People] ... watch news bulletins and the first three stories every night is a stabbing,a robbery and a murder. After a couple of years,they’re going to think the world is a dangerous place.”

Meanwhile,political law-and-order campaigns were a “big stationary target”.

“Where voters fail to understand economic intricacies,they can understand when someone’s been assaulted or murdered,” he said.

“It lends itself to colourful media headlines and opposition point scoring. It’s really the perfect fit for conflict politics. And it’s working – the government is losing control of the narrative.”

Williams believed the Palaszczuk government would be in trouble if an election were held today. Expect the opposition to continue hammering the youth crime narrative,he said,particularly outside south-east Queensland in seats “where crime tends to push people’s buttons more”.

“It’s about politics,clearly,at the end of the day,” said the head of QUT’s School of Justice,Professor John Scott.

“Unfortunately,in liberal democracies,one of their weaknesses is that there’s a lot of short-term focus rather than implementing things that actually work down the track.”

Scott said “justice reinvestment” – a focus on the structural conditions that caused crime – was a meaningful long-term approach.

Experts and studies suggest many young detainees have undiagnosed neurological impairments. They may come from troubled households without structure,attention or regular meals.

One practical measure in some Indigenous communities was night buses to collect wayward youths and bring them to community centres with activities and meals,Scott said.

Among a range of new laws and spending,the Palaszczuk government announced this week it would expand the presumption against bail to more crimes and make breaching bail an offence.

It would also invest an extra $100 million in diversion and rehabilitation.

“The only things that will work with juvenile justice,and what has been shown to work through evidence,is to really think about restorative justice,” Zahnow said.

“It’s to think about a multi-agency care-based approach,where we teach young people through mentorship,education,family development,long-term care ... the skills they need for individual resilience,for jobs and to become part of the community.”

She agreed some children were too violent to be in the community and youth detention had its place as a last resort. But she believed Queensland needed a better model:small facilities with more access to psychologists,mentors and other professionals.

“You can see[the new laws] are there to placate the community rather than to have an impact,” she said. “And the problem with that is it costs money – money that could be spent on helping these young people.”