New South Wales will increase a 'trial' on youth bail laws for three more years, as data showed more than 80 per cent of alleged young offenders were refused bail.
The laws introduced last year outraged youth and Indigenous advocates, as well as many in the NSW Labor party, with the legislation going against recommendations made in the 1991 royal commission into Indigenous deaths in custody.
Set to expire in April, Labor revealed on Friday they wanted to extend the tougher laws until 2028.
NSW Aboriginal Legal Service chief executive Karly Warner slammed the announcement.
"These bail laws have not only failed to reduce crime but have put another generation of young children into an express training program for a life of crime and suffering," she said.
"Locking kids up has never worked, anywhere. Yet at a time when NSW families are struggling under the cost-of-living crisis, the NSW Government is costing taxpayers millions with its failed bail laws and law-and-order rhetoric."
Data from the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research shows 125 Aboriginal children were in custody at the end of September 2024, whilst last week the Productivity Commission revealed an average daily number of 115 Aboriginal children in custody in 2023-24.
It also revealed Australia now spends over $1 billion per year imprisoning children.
Premier Chris Minns said the tougher laws were working, citing data which showed 97 of 123 alleged young offenders were refused bail using the new law between April and September.
"Under our bail laws, alleged offenders are more than twice as likely to be denied bail," he said.
"The bail laws need to be retained - and that's exactly what we are doing."
The government also announced a $2 million boost for youth engagement, focussing on reducing crime, as well as improving family safety and supporting early childhood development.
When the contentious were announced last year, Ms Warner called them a "devastating betrayal of Aboriginal children in NSW," and said the organisation was "drawing a line in the sand".
There was also internal pressure from the NSW Society of Labor Lawyers, who penned an open letter arguing the laws were "not fit for purpose."
The three-year extension will require fresh legislation, which will likely ignite the rifts in Labor's ranks, as well as the progressive crossbench, on how the government is treating youths.
"These laws operate contrary to international agreements and NSW law on the treatment of young people," NSW Greens spokesperson for First Nations Justice, Sue Higginson, said.
"They intentionally target vulnerable young people and apply a harsher penalty to children over adults - it was unacceptable then and it's unconscionable that Premier Minns is now going to extend it for three years."
When introduced last year, NSW Police Minister Yasmin Catley defended the government's decision, challenging critics to travel to the regional towns impacted by youth crime.
She said she was "happy to look anyone in my party in the eye" and tell them to go to regional areas such as Moree, Bourke, or Wilcannia and "tell these kids who are on their 20th bail how they're going to keep them out of jail".
Ms Higginson disagreed, arguing on Friday the laws were "not designed to reduce crime, they were only designed to make the Government appear tough on crime".
They were one of a number of decisions by Labor-led states which were condemned by experts as likely to fuel the already rising number of young Indigenous people in custody.
Before they were defeated in the state election in October, Queensland Labor twice suspended the state's human rights act: to criminalise breach of bail for children, and to allow children to be housed in adult watch houses.
In Victoria, the government reversed its promise to raise the age of criminal responsibility to 14 - instead only raising it to 12 - and ditched plans to give children the presumption of bail.
