(Adopted May 2026)
Principles
The Queensland Greens believe that:
1. Law enforcement and judicial processes should be guided by restorative and transformative justice principles, with a focus on education and rehabilitation.
2. A just and effective criminal justice system:
2.1 Protects the community;
2.2 Reduces the social impacts of crime;
2.3 Addresses the causes of crime;
2.4 Protects the human rights of victims, suspects, and perpetrators; and
2.5 Offers a range of interventions in addition to loss of liberty.
3. Imprisonment should be a last resort with rehabilitation the main motivation.
4. Loss of liberty, including custodial interventions, temporary holds, remand, and arrests should only be used where a person is a risk to the community.
5. The following basic principles of criminal justice must be protected:
5.1. Freedom from prolonged detention without charge or trial.
5.2. The presumption in favour of bail.
5.3. The principle of double jeopardy.
5.4. The legal presumption of innocence until proven guilty.
5.5. The right to a trial by jury for all serious indictable offences.
5.6. The requirement for unanimous jury verdicts.
5.7. The independence of the judiciary from political interference.
5.8. Judicial discretion in sentencing and bail.
5.9. The freedom from allegation based on association.
6. Support services for people and their families adversely affected by crime must be free and accessible.
7. Domestic violence, including coercive control, requires an integrated system of response led by community organisations.
8. Programs for prevention of incarceration, programs in custody and programs for newly released incarcerated people who are First Nations people need to be initiated and led by First Nations peoples.
9. All people in closed environments, such as institutions, prisons, and psychiatric facilities, have a right to a safe, peaceful existence, free from harm and fear of violence.
10. All people in closed environments must receive appropriate care relating to their gender, sexual orientation, culture, religion, disability, and other axes of oppression.
11. Any prisons, remand facilities or jails should be publicly owned and run.
12. Alleged offenders must be supported until judicial processes are concluded.
13. Journalists, activists, protestors, whistleblowers, and researchers must have strong affirmative legal protections against raids, intimidation, and legal threats.
14. All individuals have a right to privacy, including freedom from arbitrary searches.
15. Incarcerated people have the right to fair working conditions and compensation at full award rates.
16. Law enforcement should be restructured to focus on core responsibilities for which they are suited and trained for.
17. Law enforcement and judicial process is to remain free from political influence, and should be separate from each other.
18. Law enforcement should utilise de-escalation tactics and seek to successfully resolve situations without the use of force, firearms or tasers wherever possible.
19. The hiring of police by private interests, or any other form of privatisation of policing services must be prohibited.
20. People convicted of corruption, exploitation, or abuses of power should be barred from holding authority positions within law enforcement or the judicial process system.
21. Law enforcement must not be used to prevent protests or intimidate protestors.
22. Law enforcement must not intimidate, manipulate, or coerce witnesses or defendants.
23. Funding should be directed to prevention strategies rather than incarceration.
24. In building up holistic life-sustaining systems that prevent, reduce, and better address harm and violence, in order to create a world where we do not need to rely on law enforcement, prisons, and child protection authorities.
Aims
The Queensland Greens will:
1. Support programs that address the structural circumstances contributing to crime.
2. Prioritise and fund alternatives to imprisonment and make them widely available.
3. Increase funding for services for victim survivors, before, during, and after the incarceration of an offender.
4. Implement in full all recommendations from the Royal Commission Into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody.
5. Ensure that crime scene cleanup is the responsibility of QPS.
6. Assign management of traffic control, regulatory traffic law enforcement, and crowd control to another entity.
7. Introduce an adequately funded and integrated approach to respond to domestic violence and sexual assault, with services available throughout the state.
8. Fund allied health workers and other community professionals to respond effectively to domestic and family violence.
9. Implement ongoing preventative and educative programs aimed at the public, law enforcement, and the judiciary regarding domestic violence and sexual assault.
10. Ensure training and continued support for law enforcement officers in de-escalation and the resolution of situations without the use of force, firearms or tasers.
10.1. Must include utilising the expertise of other sectors such as mental health or allied health services.
10.2. Needs to be initial and ongoing, and based on real-life simulation.
10.3. Training and ongoing governance must be provided by an independent community-based body and funding should be allocated to this.
10.4. Trainees should have access to independent whistleblowing.
11. While firearms and tasers are still in use by law enforcement:
11.1. Implement restrictions on what circumstances law enforcement can carry firearms, including limitations on concealed carry and a restriction to only officers who have undergone additional specialised training, responding to situations with a serious threat of violence to a person, and appropriateness relating to location and expected duties.
11.2. Require initial and ongoing firearms and tasers training, based on real-life simulation with a focus on ensuring the least violent outcomes.
11.3. Require firearms and tasers training and ongoing governance to be provided by an independent community-based body and funding should be allocated to this.
11.4. Require body cameras to be worn by all law enforcement officers and operational at all times when on active duty.
11.5. Where body camera footage is missing, adverse inference should be assumed.
11.6. Ensure an investigation of every firearm and taser incident with the findings made public.
11.7 Ensure the removal of all law enforcement tasers which are capable of operating in drive stun or dry tasering mode.
11.8 Require that tasers are not used to enforce compliance.
12. Ensure law enforcement is not used to prevent protests or intimidate protestors.
13. Ensure that appropriate and accessible support services are provided to members of the Queensland Police Service (QPS).
13.1. Mental health support services should be provided by external and independent services funded by the state, and accessing these on a regular basis must be a condition of employment.
13.2. An independent body must be tasked to review and assess support services provided to law enforcement.
13.3. Ensure QPS takes responsibility to verify that police officers are physically, mentally, and emotionally able to carry out their role.
13.4. Ensure QPS verify the competence of officers in supporting vulnerable people and attending domestic violence incidents.
14. Ensure law enforcement agencies are trained by independent community organisations led by people with the relevant lived expertise to respect diversity when dealing with the general public.
15. End the training of law enforcement dogs to be violent to people and the use of dogs to carry out stop and searches and in situations where there is a possibility to hurt people.
16. Ban strip searches without a warrant, including their use on incarcerated people. In the case of underage people, there must also be a legal guardian present.
17. Stop and reverse any policies which result in the militarisation of law enforcement, including the integration of military training, weapons, equipment, and philosophy into policing.
18. Support the establishment of an independent body and mechanisms for civilians to investigate and prevent all police misconduct and corrupt conduct.
19. Ensure that the system for the investigation and resolution of complaints is independent, transparent, accessible, effective, adequately resourced and timely.
20. Ensure the system for complaint resolution is reviewed and met with adaptive strategies to ensure processes are improved when ineffective or inappropriate processes are found.
21. Amend the criminal code for non-custodial penalties for those convicted of non-violent crimes in order to maximise the likelihood of successful rehabilitation and reduce recidivism.
22. Oppose any political pressure or interference with court sentencing.
23. Abolish mandatory minimum sentencing.
24. Expand the range of restorative justice and properly supervised diversionary measures.
25. Extend the operation of the Drug Court and the Youth Drug and Alcohol Court to more locations across Queensland.
26. Advocate for increased funding and capacity of the Family Court to prioritise proceedings involving family and domestic violence or where a party has breached a domestic violence order.
27. Ensure legal protections for research, investigation, and responsible disclosure of security vulnerabilities.
28. Remove unjust restrictions on the right to apply for bail, ensuring that any conditions placed on bail are reasonable and are not an indirect method of refusing bail.
29. Support distinct criminal justice policies in relation to First Nations peoples, led by members of those communities.
30. Provide effective support systems within the courts for disabled people (including victims, defendants/offenders, and witnesses).
31. Monitor and implement any necessary reforms to minimise stress on complainants in sexual assault and rape trials, consistent with a fair investigation, trial, and court procedures.
32. Provide discretion for judges to permit representation for victims within trials.
33. Increase funding for non-legal support services that help people navigate the criminal justice system.
34. Adequately fund the office of Director of Public Prosecutions, and protect it from political interference.
35. Support measures to encourage greater diversity of representation in the judiciary.
36. Continually update criminal and judicial legislation including the removal of ‘archaic’ or ‘trivial’ offences.
37. Re-establish public ownership and control of all Queensland correctional facilities.
38. Support measures to ensure that the human rights and dignity of incarcerated people are respected within the prison environment, including:
38.1. Ensuring independence for Official Visitors to prisons and their right to appeal against dismissal.
38.2. Ensuring that within one week of a death in custody, next of kin and legal representation are notified and have the option to receive copies of records.
38.3. Monitoring and publicly reporting all deaths and assaults in custody in a culturally appropriate manner.
38.4. Providing effective programs and support systems for all disabled people.
38.5. Ensuring prison occupancy does not exceed built or operational capacity.
38.6. Abolishing subminimum wage for incarcerated people.
38.7. Opposing coercive labour practices for incarcerated people and those on diversion programs.
38.8. Repealing laws that disenfranchise incarcerated people.
39. Ensure that all people in closed environments are placed in facilities appropriate for their gender.
40. Implement effective programs to rehabilitate incarcerated people and reduce recidivism, including education, training schemes, employment opportunities, post release social support, housing, and other social and vocational services. These services should also be available for people on remand and in all communities.
41. Ensure that all incarcerated people and accused offenders have access to: publicly funded, prompt and accessible medical care, including but not limited to: mental health, optical, and dental treatment, drug harm reduction services including opioid substitution or agonist therapy, naloxone and needle and syringe programs, sexual health services and prophylactics, and other specialist health and disability services.
41.1. All incarcerated people and accused offenders must have access to Medicare and the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme.
41.2 All incarcerated people and accused offenders must have access to the NDIS and appropriate disability support.
42. Increase funding for legal and non-legal support services within prisons.
43. Ensure adequate initial and ongoing training and support of Queensland Corrective Services (QCS) staff.
43.1. Ensure culturally-competent and trauma-informed training and continued support for QCS staff in de-escalation and the successful resolution of situations without the use of force, firearms or tasers wherever possible.
43.1.1. Must include utilising the expertise of other sectors such as mental health or allied health services.
43.1.2. Needs to be initial and ongoing, and based on real-life simulation.
43.1.3. Training and ongoing governance must be provided by an independent community-based body and funding should be allocated to this.
43.1.4. Trainees should have access to independent whistleblowing.
43.2. Ensure that appropriate and accessible support services are provided to QCS staff.
43.2.1 Mental health support services should be provided by publicly funded external and independent services, and accessing these on a regular basis must be a condition of employment.
43.2.2. An independent body must be tasked to review and assess support services provided to QCS staff.
44. Ban the use of spit hoods and similar devices.