Queensland Premier David Crisafulli announced a new criminal offence this month targeting repeat young offenders who commit serious crimes while on bail. The measure carries a mandatory sentence — the length to be set later — and will be legislated before the end of 2026. It's the third major expansion of the state's 'Adult Crime, Adult Time' framework in under two years.

Crisafulli framed it with the slogan "breach bail, go to jail." ABC News confirmed the bill would impose mandatory jail time for young offenders who breach bail by committing serious crimes. A second bill would tighten the bail test for serious repeat offenders.

The 'Adult Crime, Adult Time' framework started in late 2024 with mandatory minimums for murder by minors. A May 2025 expansion added harsher penalties for 20 new offences. By March 2026, the framework covered 45 youth crime offences and, according to government figures, affects more than 4,000 young offenders.

What the Critics Say

Youth justice advocates opposed the announcement. Katherine Hayes, CEO of the Youth Advocacy Centre, said Queensland already operated under "the harshest youth bail laws in Australia" — a view backed by statute. The previous government introduced a presumption against bail in the Youth Justice Act and made breach of bail a criminal offence for children. Hayes also noted Queensland currently incarcerates more children than any other state — more than Victoria and New South Wales combined.

Debbie Kilroy, CEO of Sisters Inside, was blunter: the LNP government had "declared war on children" and was "building a youth justice system driven by headlines instead of evidence."

Neither advocate disputes that youth crime is a real political and community concern. What they contest is whether adding mandatory sentences on top of an already tight framework produces better outcomes — or simply higher incarceration numbers.

How the New Offence Works

The offence is narrow in scope: it applies to repeat youth offenders committing serious crimes while on bail, not to bail breaches generally. The mandatory sentence length hasn't been set. Legislation is due by December 2026, so Parliament still needs to work through the detail — which offences count as "serious" and what the sentencing floor will be.

The Queensland Government's official statement pitched the measure as a response to community frustration with repeat offending. Crisafulli's public comments said much the same: "We've listened to Queenslanders across the state who are fed up with repeat offenders."

That framing sits oddly with the existing laws. The Making Queensland Safer Laws, passed in late 2024, already let courts consider an offender's full criminal history — including juvenile records — at sentencing. The presumption against bail for certain young offenders is already in statute. Breach of bail is already a criminal offence for children. The government hasn't clearly explained what gap this new offence fills that the current suite does not.

The answer Crisafulli's office would offer is part legal, part political: mandatory sentencing strips away judicial discretion. That's precisely the goal. Courts applying the existing framework can and do release young offenders; a mandatory sentence forecloses that option for the specified cohort.

But the advocates raise a harder point: Queensland already locks up more children than any other state in the country. That fact tends to disappear in the noise of a conference speech, but it will resurface when the government's incarceration data comes out in budget estimates. The mandatory sentence length, when announced, will tell you how far Crisafulli means to take this.