The Expanding Adult Crime, Adult Time and Taking a Strong Stance on Drugs and Anti-Social Behaviour Amendment Bill 2026 (Qld) is being framed as a decisive response to crime. Stronger penalties. Faster consequences. Expanded police powers.
On paper, it reads like control. In practice, it operates like architecture. And architecture, more than intention, determines who is held, who falls through, and who is pushed out.
What the Government Says:
The Queensland Government presents the Bill as a three-part solution: Expansion of “Adult Crime, Adult Time” to more offences. Reform of drug laws to increase consequences. Creation of Designated Business and Community Precincts (DBCPs) with expanded policing powers.
It points to indicators such as a reported 7.2% reduction in victims of crime reductions in youth offending rates and certain crime categories.
The narrative is simple: stronger laws are working.
But simplicity is doing a lot of work here.
What the Data Complicates:
Recent reporting and committee scrutiny tell a more layered story. Some of the newly added offences under “Adult Crime, Adult Time” have rarely or never been committed by children, raising questions about whether the expansion is targeting an actual pattern of harm or constructing one.
At the same time: overall youth court appearances have declined; most young people are still receiving non-custodial outcomes.
This creates a tension: If youth offending is decreasing in key areas, what exactly is being expanded? And who will these expanded powers most likely capture?
A Neuro-Affirming Lens:
The Problem Isn’t Intent. It’s Defaults. A neuro-affirming analysis starts from a different premise: Harm in systems is rarely produced by intent. It is produced by default pathways.
These include escalation mechanisms, exclusion rules, time-limited compliance requirements, information-sharing systems, inaccessible review processes
When these defaults are poorly designed, they don’t fail loudly. They fail quietly, repeatedly, and predictably.
Human Rights - Acknowledged, Then Overridden:
The Bill’s own Statement of Compatibility acknowledges that parts of the legislation are not compatible with the Human Rights Act 2019 (Qld).
This should be alarming...Because once incompatibility is conceded, the burden shifts. The question is no longer “is this good policy?” It becomes: Is this necessary, proportionate, and the least restrictive option available? That case has not been clearly made on a limb-by-limb basis.
Youth Justice Expansion: Widening the Net
The Bill expands adult sentencing to additional offences, including unlawful stalking and related conduct.
On the surface, this targets serious behaviour. In practice, it introduces high-risk ambiguity: context-dependent behaviours, interpersonal conflict reframed as criminal escalation, increased risk of misidentification.
For Neurodivergent young people, this risk is amplified.
Communication differences, distress responses, or relational misunderstandings can be interpreted through a criminal lens when systems are designed for compliance, not understanding.
Drug Policy: From Diversion to Escalation
The Bill replaces a multi-opportunity diversion model with a more immediate consequence pathway, including fines and mandatory responses.
Supporters argue this introduces accountability. Critics, including medical bodies, warn it may: increase long-term harm, fail to address dependency as a health issue.
From a systems perspective, the shift is clear: from health interface to enforcement interface.
And enforcement systems behave differently. They escalate.
Particularly for people experiencing poverty, disability, unstable housing crisis or dependency.
What looks like “non-compliance” is often access failure.
Precinct Powers: Exclusion as a Tool of Order
The introduction of DBCPs allows for: move-on directions, exclusion zones, bans from areas, expanded search powers.
These are framed as tools to restore safety. But they also reshape space itself.
Public space becomes conditional. Access becomes something that can be revoked.
And for people already on the margins, exclusion is not temporary. It compounds. Loss of services, loss of stability, increased surveillance, increased contact with the system.
The Pattern Across All Three Limbs:
Across youth justice, drugs, and precinct powers, a consistent design pattern emerges: Coercion is easy. Correction is hard.
This is the core structural issue.
Penalties escalate quickly. Review pathways are complex or weakened. Errors are difficult to reverse. Disproportionate impacts are acknowledged but not structurally prevented.
This is not neutral. It is directional.
A Lived Systems Scenario
Consider this: A young person with executive functioning disability receives a penalty notice.
They: do not understand the election process, miss the time frame, incur escalation, are later excluded from a precinct where services are located.
At no point does the system formally “fail.” Yet the outcome is predictable, preventable harm.
What a Safer System Would Require
A neuro-affirming, rights-compatible approach does not reject safety. It redefines how safety is built.
At minimum, it requires systems that are:
Auditable - outcomes and errors are measurable.
Correctable - decisions can be quickly reviewed and reversed.
Symmetric - the ease of enforcement is matched by the ease of correction.
Without this, safety becomes selective.
The Real Question
This is not a debate between: being “tough on crime” or being “soft on crime”
It is a design question: What kind of system are we building?
One that: escalates quickly, excludes efficiently, corrects slowly.
Or one that: understands complexity, prevents harm, and remains accountable when it gets things wrong.
If the State expands its power to exclude, penalise, and surveil, it must equally expand the public’s power to challenge, correct, and scrutinise those decisions.
Anything less is not strength. It is imbalance, dressed as certainty.
In solidarity,
The Collaborators @ GRANN
and a massive Thank You to the community member who brought our attention to the timing of this Bill and made a submission.
We are immensely grateful.
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