The 14-year-old ‘written off’ by Queensland’s youth justice system

Queensland government officials and whistleblowers have warned that a youth crime crackdown in the state has ‘demonised’ young offenders, with a record number of young people funnelled into youth detention. They have raised concerns about blunt policing tactics and brutal conditions in custody, with children locked in solitary confinement for weeks at a time. Guardian Australia’s Queensland correspondent Ben Smee speaks to a 14-year-old on the ‘serious repeat offender’ index – a police blacklist disproportionately made up Indigenous young people – about life on the frontline of the state’s youth crime crackdown