Record investment for community safety

The budget included a record $3.281 billion operating budget for the Queensland Police Service, which will fund key initiatives to support community safety.

Included is funding for extreme high visibility police patrols, a new specialist youth crime rapid response squad, Youth Co-responder Teams, additional early action groups and Police Liaison Officer high visibility proactive patrols.

Commissioner Katarina Carroll said their highest priority continued to be community safety.

“We appreciate this strong investment into assisting police tackle youth crime, strengthen our police recruitment pipeline and ensure our police academies are world class,” she said.

“Upgraded facilities and equipment, along with boosted police personnel, will help keep communities and officers across the state safe.

“Providing everything our officers need to perform their duties is very important and I’m pleased to see this significant investment in the QPS.”

A new key focus of driving early intervention youth initiatives was the $50 million program to build additional Queensland Police-Citizens Youth Clubs in priority locations.

The Oxley Police Academy and Dog Squad will be relocated to the Wacol Police Precinct and the Specialist Response Group will head to an alternative site.

Additional funding of $6.2 million will expand the fleet of armoured vehicles and the Rosewood police facility is among a number to be upgraded.

A wide range of intervention and diversionary programs will receive increased funding of $189.5 million over five years to complement the tough new laws introduced earlier this year that target serious repeat youth offenders.

This includes funding for extending and expanding Youth Co-responder Teams (including new teams for Ipswich) made up of police and youth justice workers who engage with young people to deter offending, extending and expanding the Intensive Bail Initiative for repeat offenders with complex needs, fast Track Sentencing pilot program to finalise Children’s Court matters faster so young people spend less time on remand, grassroots early intervention programs and $850,000 over two years for the shopping precincts crime prevention program.

There is also funding for diversion programs to divert young people away from the criminal justice system, empowering communities to develop local solutions to youth crime through community-based projects, extending and expanding Intensive Case Management by case managers who work to address issues that contribute to chronic juvenile offending and new Specialist Youth Crime Rapid Response Squad involving police and youth justice workers to target high-risk offending.

Minister for Youth Justice Di Farmer said the State Government was focused on delivering early intervention and diversionary programs to prevent young people from offending in the first place, as well as programs to stop reoffending.

“We will continue to fund programs and services where the evidence shows they are effective in reducing reoffending and increasing community safety,” she said.

“This is why we are expanding and extending initiatives such as our Co-responder Teams and Intensive Case Management, as well as funding new initiatives to help break the cycle of youth crime.

“Establishing two new therapeutic youth detention centres remains a priority in this budget.

Shadow Minister for Police Dale Last said the State Government had abandoned the Queensland Police Service and Queensland crime-ravaged communities in its Budget.

“Fewer Police and weaker laws are what created the Queensland Youth Crime Crisis and now we discover Police numbers continue to go backwards,” Mr Last said.

“These numbers prove that the Police Minister knew all along about Police numbers going backwards across the state and yet he deliberately misled Queenslanders to hide his failures.

“His promise to employ an additional 1,450 police above attrition by 2025 is in tatters.