Sick of US politics? I bring you: more auspol!

So this month, there's an election in the state of Queensland between the left-leaning Labor Party (currently in govt) and the right-wing LNP (currently in opposition). LNP Leader Deb Frecklington is running on a "law and order" / "tough on crime" strategy and announced her curfew plan for two cities today. Under the proposal, police would be given powers to take unsupervised youths off the streets and take them to a designated location until their parents pick them up + may issue fines to the parents. Article on it link

Proponents (from the article) argue:
- It will address youth crime
- It will "make sure that parents become responsible for their children" (per Deb Frecklington)
- It will keep the community safe

Opponents (from the article) argue:
- It won't actually bring down crime rates; young people who are breaking laws won't follow a curfew
- It doesn't address the actual causes of juvenile crime
- It's authoritarian
- It "stigmatises, victimises and criminalises young people" (per Amnesty International)
- It's aimed at areas with a large population of young Indigenous people, marginalising them even more / bringing them into the criminal justice system earlier

Y'all are minors

Nope @ more nanny state nonsense.

Momma State wants you in bed and all tucked in by 8pm, kiddos

(Don't go thinking you can cheat, either - Daddy Police will come check on you)

On principal I disagree with curfews. Minors should have rights too. They aren't necessarily in danger or a danger to others. Small kids like 2-10, sure, because they are still at that age where adult supervision is necessary at home but teens are more capable of handling themselves than people think.

^"Teens are more capable of handling themselves than people think" like especially 17 year olds?? I was a shy nerd who didn't have a sip of alcohol til age 18 and would definitely still walking around after 10pm sometimes (coming back from an event, a friend's place, anything)

Kids wandering the street and causing trouble is the end result of the fact that many of them come from dysfunctional homes. The problem needs to be treated at the source if it's ever going to improve. Make sure kids have safe and stable homes to go to, and make sure they're valued in the community instead of being treated like shit for just existing, and maybe then we'll see a drop in youth crime.

A youth curfew is ridiculous, almost impossible to enforce, and the kids who are already breaking laws aren't going to give a shit about breaking curfew anyway. But yeah sure giving this dysfunctional and poor family a $250 fine and locking the kid up for a night will defo resolve the problem and exponentially expand the child's prospects /s

Also lol most of the people praising this policy were, just a few months ago, shitting on Dan Andrew's 10pm coronavirus curfew.

Curfews to reduce the spread of a deadly disease = fascism, "diCtaToR dAn"

Curfews to keep young (brown) people off the street = good government

Dude, same. I mean I did have some alcohol but it was with my parents. But yeah, when I was younger I was very cautious and my sister and I would always go to the park and stuff after 10:00. We never caused anyone any harm, we never vandalized, and we were never hurt. Such was the case for a lot of people I knew.

And I'd agree that the problem is home life (usually) for kids who do tend to cause harm. Kids need stability at home to keep them from doing mischife off of the streets. Another option is good and quality after school activities to give them something to do (an outlet) and keep them busy.