New name and shame laws for Qld child offenders

Queensland’s Newman government says it will change laws that protect juvenile offenders' identities next year to allow the names of children as young as 10 to be revealed if they commit a second offence. The new laws would also make breaching bail a separate offence, and would require the transfer of children to adult correctional facilities if they have more than six months of their sentence remaining by their 17th birthday.

Attorney-General Jarrod Bleijie said that the laws were tough but necessary as the former Labor government’s “slap-on-the-wrist approach” has “left Queensland with a generation of arrogant recidivist young offenders.’’ Civil liberty groups, however, say that naming and shaming does not work but encourages juvenile offending. Children may take enjoy the publicity they receive when they are identified and may compete for notoriety “by committing more and more serious offences”.