Youth crime is rising, but the cause is not young people. The real drivers are the politicians and landlords who built a society that puts profit above children. This is not a broken system. It is a system designed to buy, sell, extract and control, while leaving families and young people to deal with the fallout.
Research makes the pattern clear. The Australian Institute of Criminology shows that the strongest predictors of youth offending are poverty, overcrowded housing, and family stress. These conditions do not appear out of nowhere. They come from political decisions that favour property investors and developers over ordinary people.
Source: [https://www.aic.gov.au/crg/reports/crg-1795-6](https://www.aic.gov.au/crg/reports/crg-1795-6)
The same study shows that child neglect, strongly linked to financial pressure and unstable housing, explains most of the difference in youth crime between communities. Politicians created the housing policies that caused this pressure. Landlords profit from the scarcity created by those policies.
The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare reports more than 24,000 young people aged 15 to 24 were homeless on Census night, with more than half living in severely crowded dwellings.
Source: [https://www.aihw.gov.au/reports/children-youth/homelessness-and-overcrowding](https://www.aihw.gov.au/reports/children-youth/homelessness-and-overcrowding)
Homelessness is not caused by young people. It is the direct result of governments cutting public housing, rewarding property speculation, and allowing landlords to treat housing as a profit machine instead of a basic right. Children pay the price for adult greed.
A major AIHW report shows that young people who experience homelessness, unstable housing or child protection involvement are far more likely to end up in the youth justice system.
Source: [https://www.aihw.gov.au/reports/homelessness-services/vulnerable-young-people-interactions-across-homel/summary](https://www.aihw.gov.au/reports/homelessness-services/vulnerable-young-people-interactions-across-homel/summary)
This is not a surprise. When politicians refuse to fund community services, when landlords drive up rents, when housing is turned into a wealth-building tool instead of a place to live, the outcome is predictable. Young people fall through the cracks created by adult decisions.
The political establishment created a society where houses are investments, families are financial burdens, and children are treated as an afterthought. Meanwhile, landlords and investors collect profits while communities crumble. Politicians defend these interests and then blame young people for the consequences.
These outcomes are not accidents. They are the result of choices made by adults in power. It is easier for politicians to blame children than to confront the landlords, developers and donors who benefit from the current system.
Youth crime is not the crisis. The real crisis is adult responsibility, adult priorities and adult power. Young people are living in the world politicians and landlords built for them, a world shaped by short-term profit and long-term neglect.
Until the people who run the system change it, young people will keep being punished for the damage adults created.