YOUTH CRIME WAVE IN QUEENSLAND WILL ONLY BE REINED IN BY THE DETERRENT CALLED JAIL

The big question which Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk and the Attorney- General, Shannon Fentiman, need to provide the people of Queensland an answer to is this - why won't the government do what needs to be done, in legislation form, to crack down once and for all on youth crime?

The young justice system in Queensland is nothing short of farcical, and has been that way for a long, long time.

It's well patronised, sad to sad, by a revolving door of serial juvenile offenders, whom you can't blame for thinking that they can get away with blue murder, so to speak. 

Because errant magistrates, who year after year continue to be completely out of step with "community expectations" of justice being proportionate to the crime, keep letting juvenile offenders off the hook with no custodial sentence whatsoever. 

Repeat juvenile offenders, more times than not, aren't even getting two or three months jail time. They're back out on the street, free as a bird, literally after they walk out of the courthouse where they got their last "slap on the wrist". It is just ridiculous, besides terribly wrong.

How many more people have to die at the hands of repeat juvenile offenders before the Premier and the Attorney-General come to the logical conclusion that it's time that they act, without in any way breaching the seperation of powers, to crack down on youth crime? 

To once and for all end the magistrate court merry-go-round of having repeat juvenile offenders repeatedly in court, for committing more than one crime. 

The Palaszczuk government needs to impose mandatory sentencing for juvenile offenders after two convictions for any serious crime.

Simply meaning, three strikes and they're out. They will definitely go to jail for at least some period of time if they are convicted of a serious indictable offensive a third time, within say a 5 year period.

There has to be some real deterrents in place to stop youths getting tangled up in crime in the first place, and right now, in Queensland, under a "go soft on youth crime" Labor government, there isn't too many at all. That's got to change, and the sooner the better.