Fears ‘post and boast’ laws have opposite effect

AS MORE states make it illegal for offenders to publish footage of their crimes on social media, critics say the laws are ineffective and harmful. It is 1.30am in the NSW town of Moree and a 16-year-old passenger in a stolen Audi is using his phone to film the speedometer as the needle climbs towards 150km/h. He shares the video with his friends on the social media app Snapchat, a court later hearing he thought it was a “cool thing to do”. But in NSW – and increasingly across the country – such posts are illegal. The introduction of such reforms has come despite legal and human rights groups repeatedly arguing the laws are both harmful and pointless, as they create a further mechanism for locking up young people under the false pretence of addressing a problem already handled under existing law. “We’re seeing a troubling race to the bottom across the country, with governments in multiple states competing to be the toughest on children in the justice system,” Dr Mindy Sotiri, executive director of the Justice Reform Initiative, says. “‘Post and boast’ laws sound catchy and might work for political point-scoring in the short term but are ultimately just a headline-grabbing distraction. The reality is these laws will be completely ineffective. “They won’t deter offending, they won’t shift the way children and young people are using social media and they won’t address the drivers of crime. What these laws will do is drive more and more children deeper into a failing justice system.” The Moree case referred to a youth offender known by the pseudonym Nadj. The children’s magistrate in his case found that there was no evidence Nadj was motivated by “posting and boasting” when the car was stolen, that there was no information about how many people saw the Snapchat post, and that there was nothing in the post that would give others information about how to steal cars. Nadj could have been penalised with a maximum two years’ imprisonment under the laws, but the magistrate found the post would not greatly contribute to his aggregate sentence for other offences. Offenders who champion their offending on social media were already likely to cop harsher sentences, especially considering such posts often feature in police briefs of evidence. Dr Sotiri agrees. “It is a total fantasy to believe that threatening harsher penalties will deter children from offending … every jurisdiction that has taken this ‘tough on crime’ approach has seen the same result – higher incarceration rates, more children cycling in and out of harmful remand, and no long-term benefit to community safety,” she said. CHECK OUT THE LATEST EDITION OF THE WEEKLY TIMES BY CLICKING BELOW! window.df_option_74255 = {"source":"https:\/\/www.weeklytimes.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/TWT290426.pdf","outline":[],"overwritePDFOutline":false,"pageSize":"0","slug":"the-weekly-times-29th-april-2026","wpOptions":"true","id":74255}; if(window.DFLIP && window.DFLIP.parseBooks){window.DFLIP.parseBooks();} The post Fears ‘post and boast’ laws have opposite effect appeared first on THE WEEKLY TIMES.