Two teenagers were arrested after stealing a taxi and holding a knife to the driver’s throat during a terrifying carjacking.
The apparent arrogance of the Jurists to legislation, the government, and the people of this state is now ‘beyond the pale.’
The recovered knife was well capable of inflicting the fatal wound of slitting the driver’s throat, as their actions implied.
The children appeared before a Children’s Court Magistrate and were granted bail.
This offence was committed some three hours after the new stricter laws came into effect in an effort by the government to reduce juvenile crime.
It is concerning that the legislation fails at the first test.
The actions of the Youths aggravate this by throwing the knife onto a Factory roof, demonstrating they well knew their actions were criminal, and that is further aggravated by the knife they used.
Not your common domestic variety, but a type used in abattoirs, butchery and gutting fish, arguably more dangerous than a machete, showing another flaw in the machete legislation.
While we support the Judiciary in its difficult task, blatant disregard for legislation cannot be tolerated, as it will undermine the Judiciary’s independence.
This matter of wanton disregard for the law by a Court is as egregious as the offences committed by the youths. This must be addressed, and the immediate issuing of proceedings against the Magistrate to show cause why they should not be held in contempt of Parliament is necessary.
If this action is not taken immediately, these actions by a Magistrate could well lead to a breakdown in the long-held traditional relationship between the Jurists and the Government.
It is likely to force the Government to enact further legislation, reinforcing their role as the legislators and the Courts’ subservience to legislation.
A lack of decisive action by the Government will show them up as weak and not committed to proper and effective jurisprudence.
We are disappointed that other Jurists have not spoken out against this Magistrate’s actions, reinforcing the view that some Jurists have formed a club that encourages pushback against laws they do not favour for ideological reasons, rather than being servants of the Law.
We have long argued that the role of the Courts in reducing crime should be one of their primary considerations, and Justices should be held to account for their effectiveness.
Bad decisions that do not serve the community well must be identified and remedial action taken to ensure that all jurists perform to a satisfactory standard.
But the problem is that there appear to be no standards, and there does not appear to be an effective Judicial Review process to rein in outlier Justices or cancel their contracts.
In most other spheres of professional endeavour, there are checks and balances to ensure the particular cohort is performing to its optimum
However, there appears to be no such process in place for the Jurists, and if there are any, they are totally ineffective. The community is entitled to know how the Jurists are performing.
How the Courts can avoid accountability to the community for their role in the current crime wave is really extraordinary.
It is time that the current court system is put under the microscope.
The performance of individual Jurists.
In sentencing,
Adherence to the Legislation,
Efficient use of allocated Court time,
Further education undertaken,
Their review of the impact of their decisions on sentencing and bail procedure after the event (performance effectiveness measuring).
The performance of the Courts,
Court efficiency and work output by Jurists, compared across the Court system.
Using the same comparative process, the effectiveness of the jurist’s decision-making can be evaluated.
Like all their endeavours, it is critical that the Courts take responsibility for Service Delivery and not fall for the trap of masking poor Service delivery with Service efficiency, as many other organisations have.
When it comes to organisational or individual efficiency, it must be tested for its impact on Service delivery; if it reduces or affects that part of the equation, then back to the drawing board and try again.
The temptation to undertake a review of the system and the performance of individuals is real, however, who should conduct that review is the burning question, because the norm seems to be that any attempts to upgrade and make the Court system more productive and efficient is generally given to individuals who are part of and immersed in the current system, so anything that might upset the comfortable ‘apple cart’ will render the reviewer ‘persona non gratia’ in the Legal profession the fear of which controls the profession.
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For many years, the issue of when a child can commit a crime has been quietly ticking away, but now the Government has stepped in, as they always do, and changed a system that had flaws; instead of fixing them, they have exacerbated them.
In 2024, the Government lifted the age of criminal responsibility, Doli Incapax, to 12 years, meaning children aged 10 and 11 could no longer be held criminally responsible.
Now the chickens have come home to roost with an 11-year-old armed with a kitchen knife, an edged weapon, and an imitation firearm, entering another classroom at a Primary School and injuring an 8-year-old child and a teacher with the knife. As reported in the Herald Sun, 29th of November 2025.
The 11-year-old apparently stormed a grade 1 classroom, making threats.
If that is accurate, it is tough to argue that the 11-year-old didn’t know his action was criminal.
The aggravating factor is that the 11-year-old was carrying a kitchen knife, so he was undoubtedly intending to storm another class, demonstrating an element of planning and premeditation well before the incident.
This was not some schoolyard tiff that got out of hand, but a deliberate, thought-out attack.
The problem is not as narrow as dealing with a young child, but rather that the Courts need to play a role to ensure that the child is put on the right path.
Simply sending a child who has committed what would otherwise be a crime on their way without a hint of a sanction is tantamount to giving them a free ticket, rewarding bad behaviour.
In these circumstances, not only is the 8-year-old a victim, but so is the 11-year-old, a victim of a poor legislative approach to the handling of juvenile crime.
There is a desperate need, at a minimum, to revert to the age provisions previously in place, whereby children between 10 and 14 can only be charged if they understand the criminality they have committed, and if they do not, ask why not?
Removing the 10-year-old limit would be very positive for the child as well as society. Removing the lower restrictions to allow the courts to decide, on a case-by-case basis, and on the evidence, and independently resolve whether the doctrine of Doli Incapax applies in that particular case. This resolves the flawed one-size-fits-all approach.
This would allow the court to make orders to protect the child, if necessary, as well as test whether the child knew what they were doing was criminal.
There was once a provision for dealing with children who were likely to lapse into a life of vice or crime. It might be a good time to resurrect such a provision.
The development of our younger generation now makes them better informed and more mature than that of their peers 20 years ago, but we are raising the age of criminality rather than lowering it, which would be more practical.
Allowing anybody of any age, but particularly young people, a free ride to flaunt the law and commit heinous crimes, which this 11-year-old did, is a recipe for disaster, promoting the idea that crime is free from sanctions, which therefore loses its deterrent effect.
The chance of this 11-year-old ending up on the end of a machete is real; it will be sheer luck which end he ends up on.
We need to remember that a child of any age can swing an edged weapon – the weapon does not discriminate by age.
The legal concept of Doli Incapax is surely outdated. Ten-year-olds should have had four or five years of schooling. If they have not received education on the evils of criminal behaviour by then, it is a sad indictment of their parents and particularly of the education system.
In our most recent article, “The 300 Club Phenomenon” at https://caainc.org.au/the-300-club-phenomenon/, the CAA has outlined the issues with the current approach to juvenile crime and what needs to be done to address them.
Setting out what drives the youth phenomena, the article identifies major causes and who is responsible for failures.
Fundamental to this piece is the impact of social cohesion failure.
Over the last 20 years, our society has been ruptured, changing it from a society that respects the variety of cultures and ethnicities of its population to one that is fractured along tribal lines.
Respect for the family is continually undermined by governments hell-bent on destroying the fabric of the family, as if it competes with it.
Respect has all but evaporated, and that is founded in the application of the laws of this State and overzealous governments creating cultural divisions by promoting individual tribes, blatantly for political reasons rather than what is best for our society, coupled with overt support for fringe groups not representative of the overall community but focused on small sectors of it. These highly visible and vocal activist groups are not representative of the community as they would have you believe, but are an anathema to it.
Australia, and in many ways, Victoria led the way in creating a cohesive society where new and old groups were treated with respect. However, today, state leaders are pitting one group against another, and this manifests most vividly in our Youth.
We have lived in harmony with other cultures, but today that harmony is being eroded from all directions, and it is worsening.
In the future, we predict that the fundamental building blocks of our society will continue to erode.
Among the areas under siege, the Courts are the most obvious and most vulnerable.
This vulnerability has been created from within the Court system itself, where activist justices work to erode the court’s power, all the while ignoring the realities of society and the victims.
Failing to read the room will be the Court’s demise.
The effect of these jurist activists is to render the legal system so ineffective that the Government will have no choice but to create more restrictive laws regarding the freedom and independence of the Courts, or otherwise, anarchy will prevail.
Further, the Courts have sidelined not only the victims in criminal matters but also the perpetrator’s family, abdicating them of any responsibility.
This is a critical failure, particularly in the management of juvenile criminals.
Most of the strategies favoured by activists is to attack the family, who must be cultivated to perform the critical task of guiding and or disciplining young people away from a life of crime. They see the family as the vulnerability, to destroying society.
There are, of course, families who nurture crime by either overt actions or sheer indifference; however, legislators must enact a penalty structure for parents whose children commit crimes. Hitting them in the hip pocket will be the most effective way to focus their minds on the parenting task.
Whether that is through reformation, distinct penalties, or a combination of both is moot; something must be done.
To rectify the issue, or at least put us on a path to recovery, we must rely on those justices who the activist agenda has not swayed to show leadership and, by example, highlight the weaknesses and or activism of their fellow judges by issuing penalties that highlight the failures of others; Leadership by a new, higher standard.
We, however, fear that until we have a government that focuses on governing for everyone rather than pet projects based on ethnicity (and votes), we are unlikely to see improvements anytime soon.
Activism is not confined to the Courts but high-profile, unlawful, and violent demonstrations on our streets in pursuit of an activist agenda is a standout act of insurrection.
There is little hope of reigning in uncontrollable activities – without taking back control of our streets.
The government’s inaction on this issue is tantamount to acquiescing to the lawlessness, something a government cannot and should not do under any circumstances.
This is not about the content of any demonstration, as peaceful demonstrations are a right we all possess; it is about the lawlessness that must be given no quarter.
Unfortunately, and we would argue deliberately, the Public Service appears to be a hotbed of alternative activist activity, and the concept of providing impartial advice to government ministers on policy matters has been lost; the Public Service has morphed into an arm of the government’s ideological agenda without a discernible gap to support the separation of powers concept and foundational to our democracy, which is fast becoming a myth.
Another area impacting our youth is education.
Schools are failing in their function to educate, and they cannot claim otherwise when they routinely send children home (with or without parental knowledge) rather than addressing any indiscretions by pupils in school, as was historically the case.
Moreover, the Schools are, as a matter of course, sidelining parents in the development of their children.
They have claimed a mantle of knowing what is best for a particular child or children in general and acting accordingly, often to the deliberate exclusion of parents. This approach aligns with the activist agendas in several social areas.
Children as young as the Preparatory year are being exposed to socially divisive issues as deliberate conditioning—a manipulation of young minds who should be educated, not manipulated, on an activist community construct.
The real damage, however, is the harm to the family cohesiveness, where the views imposed on young children may conflict with those of their parents, either culturally or otherwise.
Parents have little hope of influencing the development of children when the schools act as influences on activist agendas. This is particularly true of some ethnic families, aggravated by English not being their first language or the Australian culture being dissimilar to their own.
It is no wonder that there is an overrepresentation in the crime statistics of cultures, as arrivals in Australia in recent years have had their parental role subordinated..
The combination of these factors has eroded the concept of accountability within social cohesion, and inaction every day deepens the demise of the State and its residents.
Addressing all these issues is now a matter of urgency.
It has been estimated that around 300 young people in this state are responsible for the overwhelming majority of violent crimes, particularly in Melbourne.
While some estimates refer to just 50, that only refers to the very worst and prolific offenders in the 300 group.
The ability to accurately quantify criminals is fraught, as by the nature of criminal activity, it can wildly fluctuate, and different measurements throw up seemingly contradictory assertions.
Suffice to say, and on this issue, there is one overriding consensus: Victoria is faced with a severe crime problem, the like of which has never been seen before.
And while our politicians equivocate over whether we have a crime problem or not, there are well over 300 victims who can attest from lived experiences, except some who are no longer with us, that there is a crime epidemic.
The problem we are now facing is that those who exercise influence over our lives see the solution in pouring resources into the 300 group to change their ways and gain respite for the community, well-intentioned, but a totally wrong-headed solution that will see us reporting on the 400 club in 12 months.
The wrong focus will increase the recidivist population, not reduce it.
To change these perpetrators, the first thing needed is a desire for criminals to change for the better, but that just isn’t going to happen because the life they currently lead is better, in their minds, so why would they change? Add to that the lack of an effective deterrent for criminal behaviour, and hope for change is an anachronism.
The battle some would rage is lost without firing a shot.
The reality is that we will inevitably encounter incorrigible criminals in the youth space, regardless of what we do. Hence, strategies to reduce are the best we can hope for; it is worth noting that during the late 1970s, the Turana Youth detention centre held 200 youths. So the Youth problem is not really new.
The difference then is that most of the recidivists were in detention.
A large proportion of those went on to become career criminals, and many did not survive to make old bones, many at the hands of their contemporaries.
Comparisons between those in detention and those in the 300 group must be based on objective care; however, the trends are irrefutable.
As of the June quarter 2024, an average of just 88 juveniles were in detention overnight in Victoria, see,
This may go some way toward explaining why we have such a vast number of incorrigibles on our streets, creating mayhem.
With Turana holding, in 1979, 200 youths out of a state population of about 3.5 million. Today, with 278 juveniles averaging just 88 in detention per night and a population of 7.1 million, the trend is evident.
We should be looking at somewhere north of 4-500 youths in detention to account for population growth.
The figure of 300 incorrigibles doesn’t look that bad except that they are on our streets creating more mayhem rather than being incarcerated to protect the citizens.
A popular theory amongst some is that inside every thug is a decent human being; all we need to do is tap into that being.
No scientific or practical experience supports this, unless you count the thugs growing out of the phase in a few years—if they live that long—which is wishful thinking; unfortunately, that does nothing for the thugs’ victims until they do.
The reason we have ‘the Club’ is that the Courts have generally taken the view that the rehabilitation of the worst is possible and that putting these criminals in jail will make them worse, but the question that is never answered is: worse than what?
They are already violent murderers, machete-wielding assailants and gang leaders.
The reality is there will and always has been a hardcore of juvenile offenders who continually run amok until a Judicial officer with wisdom decides to protect the community and lock them up.
The government must couch legislation to direct the Judiciary in this endeavour.
It is not just refusing bail but handing out severe penalties to remove their power base.
There is no magic-bullet solution to this problem, no matter what is pontificated; the only practical and effective way to minimise the mayhem caused is to take the hardcore off the streets and reduce the number of younger children who are ‘feeders’ that maintain the power base of the club members.
That should be our total focus: prevention.
Understanding what motivates these thugs is essential,
Notoriety and bragging rights, fed by the Justice revolving door or justice without accountability.
Exercising leadership and cohesive control over other youths who should be our target. Young people are aspirational, wanting to emulate those people whom they judge as heroes or role models. Harmless enough unless that hero is a thug, so attacking the thugs, notoriety must be a primary strategy.
The buzz and excitement, another harmless trait; however, when boredom evolves, the excitement of a more challenging activity becomes a magnet, and crime provides that outlet.
Being free to choose whatever and whenever they want to do it. Freedom is reasonable but needs to be tempered with accountability for behaviour that affects others. Young people not being held to account is a Justice failure, promoting more antisocial behaviours.
A sense of achievement. Aspirational achievements can be a good thing for youth and promote personal development, but essentially, where that manifests as criminal behaviour, it is essential to demonstrate to the youth that they have failed, not achieved. Walking from the court without a penalty feeds the negative aspect of this trait.
Answering to no one, this is sometimes a myth that young people exploit because if they are not complying with society’s rules, there is no doubt they will be answering to other members of the criminal fraternity.
Exercising power over victims, A very worrying behaviour if detected in a
relatively minor crime, it is a good indicator that this trait will evolve over time to become violent. Victims usually can’t fight back, so young thugs are motivated to exercise control by fear, and when that no longer works, a gradual increase in the severity of the violence to satisfy their power lust is inevitable.
Beating the system plays an important role; thumbing their nose at the legal system reinforces all the other traits with their peers. Irrespective of what the adjudicating jurist may say or what the legal intricacies are of a court appearance by a thug, as they walk out the door, they have beaten it. The Jurist may not see it that way, but that doesn’t matter, as the Court has provided the power to the thug. The lectures from the bench given to thugs are just white noise and serve no practical purpose other than to enhance the bragging rights of the thug and perhaps gain some notoriety in tomorrow’s paper for the Jurist.
Restorative Justice is a major driver of this failure, as it has been allowed to infect the Judiciary, and the latest instructions to magistrates hearing bail applications show just how unhinged this concept is.
The ‘Bail Bench Book’, updated by the Judicial College of Victoria on October 3, instructs decision makers that they should continue to “impose the minimum intervention required” on accused young offenders.
The guide states: “A child, especially an Aboriginal child,should bereleased on bail, with conditions, wherever possible.
“Of course, there is a risk this will not succeed, or worse, but it can be a risk worth taking in the name of community safety via recovery and rehabilitation in the long run.”
What is outrageous in these instructions is the apparent laissez-faire attitude the Judicial College has towards the victims these youths prey on.
How dare they presume that the ‘risk worth taking’ to the potential victims is acceptable?
That is not justice by any stretch, and it is noteworthy that it is not the authors of this guidance who are taking the risk, it is the community..
What can be done to redress the issue?
The way we have dealt with youth thus far is an abject lesson in what not to do.
Role of the Courts – The Courts must return to their intended role and not try to be social engineers. In other words, stick to their kitting, which they are capable of doing very well.
Role of Schooling –What is absolutely beyond reproach is that young people who remain at school are far more likely to succeed and avoid a life of crime than those who do not.
The argument that granting bail enables the kids to attend school is an absolute rubbish argument. One of the primary reasons the child is in trouble in the first place is school non-attendance.
Schools must change their ways – When we have schools that would rather send the kids home to avoid dealing with behavioural issues, in the flawed belief that homeschooling is somehow beneficial.
Inevitably, those misconceptions dramatically increase our crime rate and the loss of those valuable assets as future contributors to our community —the kids.
The last thing that should happen is that they are sent home from school because most parents have to work to survive, and children not under supervision will not conform.
If that is not a receipt from crime, I don’t know what is.
This practice must stop, and schools must devise ways to discipline children within the school space. It wasn’t that long ago that schools did precisely that, so the solution needs to be resurrected.
The community first, not the thug. – Children who commit serious and persistent crimes must be incarcerated to protect the community and teach the child accountability for their behaviour.
The detention centres must focus on education so that children who are incarcerated cannot avoid structured education.
The argument is often that locking kids up will make them worse; however, the institution must address this issue and find innovative ways to manage juveniles – a reward-for-good-behaviour rather than a reward-to-achieve-good-behaviour philosophy should underpin its management philosophy.
Employment for juveniles – Rather than kids marking time at school, our young people entering the workforce must be revised.
The aspiration of parents for their children to achieve higher academically than they did is not a harmful trait; however, the pendulum has swung too far, creating unrealistic social pressure on families, particularly the children.
To succeed in life, education levels are only part of the equation and are not a panacea for success.
Whether a child is capable of joining the workforce is a matter that the market can determine entirely. An employer will not employ even a junior if they are not confident they can make a valuable contribution to the enterprise.
The minimum age must be reduced considerably.
The practice of raising the ages of accountability or other age-related restrictions must be pragmatically reviewed, and there is a strong argument for lowering them.
A young person of today is far more socially and physically developed than their counterpart of 30-40 years ago, when many of these restrictions were imposed. Just one metric—the average height of young people today—is a strong indicator that there has been a change.
A 12-year-old was historically too young to be employed. Still, today, they are generally better able to contribute to the workforce—a better alternative than wasting time at home (if they stay there) when they could be learning productive life skills and gaining practical experience, earning a wage. This concept would be applied on a case-by-case basis, determined by the market, as an employer is unlikely to hire someone who cannot provide a return on investment.
Youth initiatives – Traditionally, when we talk of new initiatives to manage youth, the perennial issue of boot camps is always at the fore.
We would oppose such a strategy because it is reactive and feeds into the thugs’ psyche, allowing them to use the experience not to mend their ways but to exacerbate them —bragging rights.
If a youth is so criminally misbehaved that they should go to a boot camp, they should be incarcerated, which should be the ultimate Boot Camp..
The most effective initiatives must be based on empirically measurable outcomes, and the most effective methods have not yet been devised, or if they were, have been discontinued.
There is a desperate need for all programs and youth initiatives to be identified and evaluated to avoid the wasteful use of resources and to promote and expand the effective ones.
The Parents
The role of parents when their children break the law creates a conundrum and has therefore never truly been debated.
Our view is that parents must accept responsibility, and that responsibility should be related to the child’s age. The younger the child, the more responsibility a parent or parents must assume.
Courts, on conviction of a Juvenile, must be given the role to determine reparation for the victims.
Moreover, the Courts must attach a value to the crime. A car stolen worth $2000 should be considered relevant in determining a thief’s penalty, to a car worth $100,000. That either car is, or is not, insured is irrelevant as the cost is borne not by the perpetrator but the community at large.
The liability to provide the determined amount must fall on the youth and their parents. if the youth is below working age.
Changes to Victoria’s child employment laws apply from 1 July 2023. … The Act applies to the employment of children under the age of 15.
In Victoria, the minimum age to work is generally 11 for certain delivery jobs, with most other work starting at 13 in retail and hospitality, though an employer must obtain a Child Employment Permit for anyone under 15.
Employment would be a good option for many delinquents, but the discipline to undertake work (Getting out of bed in the morning) is generally lost with many young people from a combination of weak family discipline, weak or no accountability for crime by the courts, and schools opting out of responsibility; the send-home policy.
Although much discussion is needed to come up with a definitive strategy around these issues, the introduction of reformation and accountability for parents will focus the minds of many parents when their child’s adverse behaviour hits their hip pocket.
The role of the Police –
Victoria Police historically had an enviable and proud record of proactive policing with a focus on youth; however, over the last decade or so, that record has been shattered by a series of Chief Commissioners who were incapable of seeing the larger picture, instead focusing nearly exclusively on reactive policing.
Although there has always been a commitment to youth and resources applied, most of the police work falls into the reactive side, much of it masked as proactive, indicating that police leaders didn’t understand the difference.
The strategies of Chief Commissioner Mike Bush translate into targeting young people effectively before they join the 300 club.
And that is precisely what needs to happen.
We are confident that Chief Commissioner Bush may turn out to be the leader who corrects the freefall into anarchy we are currently facing, not just in policing.
Conclusion
Like the educators, corrections, the judiciary, and the Police, all need to be creative and not too proud to resurrect initiatives that have been discarded, perhaps for ideological reasons or because managers want to be different.
Don’t spend wasted time reinventing the wheel; perhaps just modify it.
Royal Commissioner Natasha Stott Despoja urges South Australia to end ‘double standard’ on parents smacking children, Herald Sun, 20th August 2025.
“Smacking should be outlawed to stop parents abusing their children under the guise of discipline, according to a landmark inquiry into family violence in South Australia.
Children have told of being beaten or kept like prisoners by parents or carers who argue it is necessary to “correct” their behaviour.
Now Royal Commissioner Natasha Stott Despoja, who heard their heartbreaking stories, has called for an end to this “double standard”.
Interestingly, a poll of 3528 voters was asked, “Do you support a smacking ban?”
19% said, “Yes”, and 81% said, “No”.
In Victoria, there are already a plethora of rules and legislation preventing any form of corporal punishment in a vast range of circumstances where children need to be disciplined, with one common denominator: corporal punishment cannot be delivered to a child unless by a parent or carer.
Common law permits only “reasonable” physical punishment, meaning:
The child must be capable of understanding what they did wrong.
The force used must not be excessive or unjustifiable.
If the punishment crosses into abuse or causes injury, it may be prosecuted under existing assault legislation.
The current laws are adequate and have stood the test of time. The exposure during this South Australian Royal Commission highlighted not a flaw in the legislation but in those who administer it.
Reportedly, there were shocking incidents of child abuse presented to the Royal Commission, but if they were as bad as alleged, then why weren’t the perpetrators prosecuted?
The risk of this move by the Royal Commissioner risks colliding with another legal principle, as young children cannot be reasonably assumed always to tell the truth or understand the possible consequences of untruths. Without some form of corroboration, there is a need for caution.
Within a domestic dispute situation, it cannot be ruled out that the corporal punishment issue will not be weaponised, with coaching from one or the other of the domestic combatants.
A move for legislation to be inserted in the parent-child relationship exposes the community to another legal principle.
It is better that ten guilty persons escape than one innocent suffer – William Blackstone, 1760, English jurist.
This principle is one of the cornerstones of democracy as we know it, and any interference must be viewed through that prism.
There is no question that children must be protected, and as a general principle, must be listened to; however, as with most criminality, the accuser must be supported by corroborative evidence.
Again, the problems appear to be with those who administer the law, not the law itself.
However, the major flaw in taking this approach is that the defences that currently exist for corporal punishment work as a deterrent; the future without these guiding principles could have the opposite effect to that intended.
Parents who exercise corporal punishment outside the principles are not likely to comply with the legislation when they lose their temper, or are under the influence of alcohol or drugs, or are just belligerent in disciplining their children. The legislation in its current form is adequate to deal with these issues; it is more about how the law is administered, not the law itself.
We hear continually the whining of those in authority that the problem with miscreant children committing significant criminal offences, often against innocent victims, is parent-blaming. Perhaps the lack of discipline as a young child has a lot to do with it.
The courts, by not ensuring consequences for illegal behaviour, are a major contributor to the no consequence principle and, therefore, adverse outcomes for children and young people.
An unintended consequence of this move will remove any vestige of consequences for inappropriate behaviour, leading to more pain inflicted on the child as they grow to live in the real world without understanding that indiscretions come with sometimes very unpleasant consequences.
The ability for a child or young person to ‘Think twice’ before acting is lost.
The removal of the ability of a parent to physically discipline a child will sentence the child to convoluted lectures and verbal assaults, potentially causing much more damage to them than an appropriate tap on the backside to correct behaviour.
The psychological harm that is inflicted on young children can be more damaging than any smack, and a parent without parenting skills can cause irreparable damage by the use of verbal or non-verbal discipline incorrectly.
An experience where a mother in a supermarket with a misbehaving child entered into a rationalisation diatribe with the two-year-old to correct behaviour is a case in point. If that is the standard, the parent who adopts it will do more harm than good over the medium term.
The child was too young to understand, and being lectured to is highly probable a common experience with little weight given the child’s lack of reaction. Of course, the real shame is that the parent’s performance was perhaps more theatre for those around her, and the child suffers.
Perhaps removing the only method a parent can exercise within the given legal parameters of ‘reasonableness’ to discipline their child is the real hypocrisy, not the comparison with adult dysfunction.
FAFO Parenting has surfaced as a new weapon in child-parent relationships to benefit both the child and the parent.
In an article in The Herald Sun on Sunday, the 17th of August 2025, by Susie O’Brien, reporting on ‘Not Gonna Lie’ podcaster, and outspoken mother-of-four, Kylie Kelce has unleashed a new parenting style on parents everywhere.
‘It’s called FAFO parenting, which stands for F**k Around and Find Out’.
However, the concept is not new; our family was exposed to it over 40 years ago. But it didn’t have the attention-grabbing title it now has.
Parental micromanagement is the obverse of FAFO, a deleterious method of parenting which, in times past, was often the subject of conversation by mothers congregating at the Primary School gate at pick up time. A time when mothers walked to the school (they didn’t have a spare car, and with most families, one car was the option) and had conversations rather than sitting in their cars.
The conversations went along the lines of, “Mrs Whomever is at it again, smothering her poor child”. The congregation offered scorn on the mother and pity for the smothered child, as it was believed smothered children would lead miserable lives and not make old bones.
Those parents of the past would never have heard of the now fashionable term micromanagement, but their descriptor of smothering was more accurate.
Podcaster and mother of four, Kelie Kelce, relates a number of her experiences that are not dissimilar to examples provided to us when our child entered kindergarten by a child psychologist at a parent training night organised by the kinder.
Kelce’s three-year-old wouldn’t wear a jacket, so she decided not to force her.
When Kelce felt she was not getting anywhere, she said her husband “nailed it” when he asked Elie to go out to the front porch to find out how cold it was. The girl was outside for less than a minute. “Then guess what, she put her jacket on,” Kelce said. FAFO.
Our family experience was at a supermarket checkout. Our two-year-old son (now over 50) threw a severe tantrum, thrashing around on the floor as his mother loaded groceries on the checkout conveyor belt, demanding something or other. His mother warned him that if he didn’t get up, she would leave him there. An older lady next in line was most disturbed, having a shot that, as a mother, she had no right to talk to the child like that. Unperturbed, his mother finished, loading her trolley and walking away. The two-year-old was up like a flash, running after his mother, who had only gone a meter or two, and clamping onto her leg. No more tantrums from then on. FAFO.
His older brother, not to be outdone, developed a very annoying habit of not getting out of bed early enough in the morning to get to school. The problem was solved when his mother took him by the arm and put him out the front door to go to school, in his PJs. As the door was shut, the realisation struck, and tears began to flow. FAFO. Consequences avoided any repeats.
A mother on TikTok, Janelle, said she decided her son could “FAFO” when he refused to wear a jacket during a rainstorm at a Scouts camp.
“They f*** around, they find out, they get the natural consequences and get to find the way through them,” Janelle said in a clip that has been viewed half a million times.
Her son got to decide for himself when he’d had enough, with Janelle saying that, unless there’s a safety issue, this is how she raises him. FAFO.
As a child grows, the strategies for FAFOneed to evolve with two overriding factors: the strategy must be age and developmentally appropriate, and safety must trump all other efforts.
Educational psychologist Clare Rowe said it was important not to “rob kids of the very experiences that develop resilience, problem-solving skills, and a sense of personal responsibility”.
“Natural consequences don’t require yelling, punishment, or endless lectures; they’re simply letting reality do the teaching,” she said.
“Of course, it’s about safety and age-appropriateness. We don’t let toddlers ‘find out’ by touching a hot stove. But for older children, allowing them to misjudge, stumble, and correct themselves is valuable. It’s not cruel- it’s how they build the judgement they’ll rely on for the rest of their lives,” Ms Rowe said.
At the Kinder parental training session, an older (than us) parent related his experience with two unruly children in the back seat of their car, travelling to see relatives 150 km up the Hume Highway. The trip was a regular nightmare for the parents until one day the father stopped the car on a long stretch of road, ordered the kids out, and drove off. A threat that had been levied but never acted upon before. The parent related how difficult it was, and both parents were glued to the rearview mirror as the children began to shrink in the distance. Having briefly lost sight of the kids, the parent turned around and drove back to pick up the distraught kids.
Behaviour from then on was resolved. FAFO.
FAFO was so effective that when a new addition was added to the backseat, some years later, the newbie started trying to cause mayhem and was told by the father that he would be put out of the car if he didn’t behave. The other two children chimed in, reinforcing that the threat was not idle. Problem solved.FAFO+.
Most parents can relate to similar experiences, but unfortunately, formal education rarely includes the essential lessons that every parent and parent-to-be needs.
And that brings us to the current imbroglio, juvenile crime.
It seems the simplest of strategies to rein in Juvenile Crime is being ignored in favour of misguided, ideologically based processes.
The strategies, FAFO, developed for small children remain the same until they reach adulthood. The only difference is a more sophisticated approach by parents as the child grows.
Consequences learned through self-taught methods are the most effective; however, parents (and the judiciary) must be prepared to create consequences for the young person who has erred.
If a 10–13-year-old commits a crime, the argument is that they do not know the behaviour was wrong. In most cases, and by that age, that is generally rubbish, and acceptance of the legal principle “Doli incapax”, a legal principle meaning incapable of understanding wrong, which evolved from medieval times when it may have been fair enough, but applied today by Government raising the age for “Doli incapax”, is the complete antithesis of what the principle was supposed to achieve.
At the expense of our children and us, the Government makes the statistics look better.
Raising the age is counterintuitive; it should be lowered to reflect societal development and the reality of young people’s development. It also promotes the notion that children today have less knowledge of accountability, right from wrong, than their forebears hundreds of years ago.
The access to life skills, particularly by electronic means, that children have today makes a mockery of the current use of the archaic “Doli incapax” principle. It highlights the ineptitude of legal reformists.
The other side of the equation is the behaviour of the Judiciary failing to find strategies to have young children and juveniles exposed to the consequences of their behaviour, whether that behaviour is unacceptable or unlawful.
The popular lecturing handed out seemingly as punishment by jurists is nothing more relevant than flapping the gums because the young people have an inbuilt meter that shuts down reception of babble of no interest to them.
The stark reality of the failure of the judiciary can be seen in the appalling tsunami of statistics for juvenile crime, which must directly reflect on their ineptitude.
Unfortunately, many jurists still pursue the principles of Restorative Justice.
The Restorative Justice principles introduced and favoured amongst the legal elite have well and truly fallen over into the parallel elite of fashionable bureaucracy.
What is disgusting is that the proponents pursue an ideologically failed philosophy with no consideration of the impact on children.
How can we state with absolute certainty that Restorative Justice has failed?
We can look to the crime statistics over the last decade or so and see without equivocation the failure writ large.
It is time the Government started listening to the pragmatic majority with lived life experiences for guidance rather than the elites, earlier referred to, who predominantly live in a cocoon, surviving on the ideological air pumped into their habitat, removing any ability for independent and pragmatic thought.
Things must change for the benefit of society and children in particular.
The CAA is proposing a Juvenile Justice Panel and is open to expressions of interest forwarded to ceo@caainc.org.au.
The hope that at last we were, seeing some semblance of justice in our community after the introduction of new bail laws has been wiped, by the reports in the Herald Sun, 22nd of July 2025, that a 15-year-old thug has been released without further supervision, because ‘he wouldn’t comply anyway’.
It is reported that the thug first came under police notice at the age of 11 and since then has racked up over 400 offences and been bailed over 50 times, continually breaching Bail.
This case highlights the inadequacy of the justice system, the judiciary, and Child protection, which have failed dramatically.
It is time these bureaucrats are held accountable, and if their current management can’t deliver good results, then the solution is clear: remove them and find someone who will make the system work.
There is no need for an inquiry, the popular go-to diversion used by Governments.
What is needed is capable management with a focus on innovation and repairing a broken system.
What is particularly appalling is that, given the high number of offences that this juvenile has committed, why should the Court foist this one-person crime wave back on the community? They must take responsibility for the actions of this youth.
The courts will not learn that protecting the community is an essential role of their being. The chances of reoffending and the possibility that someone will get injured or killed by them are real.
The argument of avoiding this child thug from being institutionalised just doesn’t wash with the community, nor should it. This thug is the master of his own destiny, good or bad, and while he chooses bad, then the community must be protected, and if, consequently, he is institutionalised, so be it. It’s up to him.
The risk to the community from this thug is in the extreme range, with a real potential that he will kill or maim an innocent citizen in a high-speed jaunt he has regularly performed over his thus far criminal career.
The same risks apply to the thug himself, from which the risk of institutionalisation would be a small price to pay to protect him from himself.
If the worst happens, where does that leave the Magistrate who had the opportunity to mitigate that risk?
The Magistrate sentenced the youth to four months’ Youth Detention, meaning with time already served, he was able to walk from the Court back into society and his normal criminal lifestyle without any supervision.
The boy had previously had 388 criminal charges against him struck out, due to the doli incapax rule, which states that a child aged 10 to 14 can’t be held criminally responsible.
And that is how this rule change works against society and perpetrators alike. How can it possibly be that after being charged with 388 criminal charges, and multiple Court appearances where the judiciary would have berated him on his behaviour, the perpetrator still claims the doli incapax rule applies and that what he was doing he didn’t know was wrong.
There is an urgent need to place a cap on offending where the doli incapax rule allows protection against prosecution. After two or three Court appearances for a crime, the doli incapax rule for that individual must be modified and or removed.
If the Courts won’t do it, then the Legislators need to step in to protect the community.
The changes in the age of young people accessing protection by the doli incapax rule have now been exposed by this criminal as wrong, and the ages of criminality should be re-adjusted back to where they were.
The status quo allows for the intent of this rule and the age limits to be abused.
It is staggering that, as a country, we have offered this child protection and a new opportunity by granting him a Temporary Refugee Visa.
His abuse of this country’s generosity and the danger to its citizens, despite multiple chances, has demonstrated clearly that he has abused the gift.
He must now be referred to Immigration to take action to withdraw the visa and return the individual to his country of origin.
The recent surge in youth crime—up 18% according to the Crime Statistics Agency (CSA)—has sparked urgent questions about the role of our education system in shaping student behaviour. While many factors contribute to this troubling trend, one that deserves closer scrutiny is the practice of “off-the-books” school suspensions. A Flawed Disciplinary Approach
As reported by The Age in the article “Off-the-books school suspensions fuelling Melbourne’s youth crime crisis”, some schools are informally suspending students, sending them home without officially recording the action. This practice not only lacks transparency but also fails to address the root causes of behavioural issues.
By removing students from the classroom without formal accountability or support, educators may unintentionally reinforce negative behaviour. Rather than engaging with the student to resolve underlying issues, this approach can feel like a reward—extra time off—for misconduct, which spawns more misbehaviour, not less..
Anecdotal Concerns and Broader Implications
There have been reports of students being suspended for controversial or misunderstood behaviour, such as expressing personal beliefs or reacting to peers in unconventional ways. While these anecdotes may not represent the norm, they underscore the importance of having consistent, fair, and well-communicated disciplinary policies.
The broader concern is that informal suspensions can lead to increased disengagement from school, leaving students unsupervised and vulnerable to negative influences, including crime and substance abuse.
The Super School Dilemma
Another structural issue exacerbating the problem is the rise of “Super Schools”—large campuses that house thousands of students. While these institutions may offer economies of scale, they also present significant challenges in maintaining discipline and fostering a sense of a school community. The social impact of these schools must be revisited to measure the impact since their inception as they may be one of the main contributors to juvenile crime.
In such environments, students can feel anonymous and disconnected. Educators, overwhelmed by the sheer volume of students, may resort to quick fixes, such as informal suspensions, rather than investing time in restorative practices.
A Model for Success
Not all schools are struggling. Rosebud High, a relatively small institution, has reportedly tackled these issues head-on with impressive results. Their success suggests that smaller school communities may be better equipped to build strong relationships, enforce consistent discipline, and support student well-being.
A Call for Reform
To address these challenges, several steps should be considered:
Transparency and Accountability: All disciplinary actions should be formally recorded and reviewed to ensure fairness and effectiveness.
Professional Development: Educators need ongoing training in behaviour management, conflict resolution, and trauma-informed practices.
School Size and Structure: Policymakers should reconsider the Super School model and explore the benefits of smaller, community-focused schools.
4. Police in Schools Program (PSIP): Reintroducing this initiative would provide valuable support. Police officers working alongside educators can help deliver life skills programs, mediate conflicts, and prevent crime before it starts. This is not the current School Engagement Model, masquerading as a Police In Schools Program, which is missing many of its important elements. and has no record of effectiveness.
Over 6,000 crimes occurred in schools in 2024 alone. This figure does not include incidents involving students outside school grounds. The need for proactive intervention is urgent.
Conclusion
The current disciplinary practices in some schools are not only ineffective but potentially harmful. By prioritising transparency, investing in educator training, rethinking school structures, and reintroducing proven programs like PSIP, we can begin to reverse the trend of youth disengagement and crime.
If the education bureaucracy cannot, or does not lead this change. In that case, it will fall to the Police to step in and exercise leadership to support our schools in creating safer, more supportive learning environments.
Also acting as a Crime Prevention initiative, results will be very impressive in a relatively short period, which was the experience of the Police, who worked on the early version of the Police in School Program.
The latest machinations in the Government’s so-called war on Machete crimes have become a bigger joke than ever, but nobody is laughing at this black comedy..
We haven’t said too much on this subject to date because we figured that there were enough smart people in the Government to work out belatedly that the Government response was ridiculously flawed and they would rectify it —no such luck.
The vast majority of Victorians are well aware of the folly of the current strategies, namely-
It’s not the machete that is the problem; it is the idiot carrying or waving it around.
Banning the sale will do nothing to stop the influx of weapons online.
We assume this is one is not covered by the legislation. At $14.37 plus free delivery, an absolute bargain for kids, it is already claimed that 1.5k of these weapons (Sorry, gardening tools) have already been sold.
The plan is that Machetes will no longer be available in retail stores. Still, they will be available online, where there is a high probability that weapons currently on the street were accessed that way anyway, defeating any ban, and retailers only need to change the weapon’s description and sell it as a tool.
The Government must recant their stance on this issue and take direct action against the perpetrators. This approach to law and order is as stupid as the other clanger, where the Police had to advertise in the newspaper before any effort to curb violent crime in public places like railway stations.
The idiocy of a police operation where search and seizure powers operate on one side of the street and not the other and the operation is only to occur at stated times allows perpetrators to cross the street or wait for the time to run out to revert to their criminal ways, is downright stupid and the Police are made to look foolish.
Effective laws are needed to empower the police to do their job.
Legislation to allow a Police member to stop and search anybody they believe, on reasonable grounds, to be carrying an edged implement capable of being used as a weapon without a lawful excuse is essential to avoid the alternative of perpetrators taking up carrying axes, swords and sythes.
The onus of the lawful excuse must rest with the defendant.
The ‘Public Place ‘ provision must not be included as the weapons are popping up too frequently in Domestic Violence incidents, and often that occurs not in a public place.
If the Government thinks the average kid who has a machete is going to surrender their status symbol and prized possession, they are less in touch with reality than we suspect. Moreover, to expect the ones that we would most like to see disarmed to go to a police station to surrender their weapon would be naive in the extreme. We doubt even a buy-back scheme would have more than very limited success.
Further, the judiciary is currently exacerbating the problem by failing to meet community expectations by granting bail to recidivist offenders.
6000 school-based crimes and 439 carjackings, and that is just for 2024. There is no way that arrests alone will solve this problem.
The near-blind obsession with a Reactive Policing model with the Restorative Justice philosophy infecting the legal system, they have combined, and both spectacularly failed, and the figures prove it.
What a mess and the most startling thing to be presented by VicPol was reported as,
“…police are determined to quickly arrest those responsible and seek their remand, a Victoria Police statement said.”
That response from VicPol does not instil confidence that they are on top of this issue, but you can be sure that there will be many more Task Forces or Special duty teams targeting criminals as part of their solution.
Next, they will blame their ineffectiveness in preventing this crime on the community for not supplying CCTV; they already blame the community for failing to maintain security and the Courts for not locking up perpetrators.
Disturbingly, remanding perpetrators in custody, although a step in the right direction, is nothing more than a ‘band-aid’ solution as the perpetrators have not been convicted.
Taking the Task Force approach has also proved inefficient and has had minimal impact.
Each of these teams must be staffed, and those staff are drawn from the local frontline police. Reducing the frontline, so named for obvious reasons, adversely impacts prevention and strategies to maintain a highly visible Police presence to dissuade criminal activity.
No criminal ever intends to get caught; the risk of being caught is the most potent deterrent, and the lack of that deterrent is mainly due to Police strategies.
The current state of play with policing is the remaining frontline police struggle to keep up with calls for assistance. As for any patrols that will reduce crime, they are minimal at best.
Inevitably, the judiciary, thwarted from their preferred position of non-custodial sentences for juveniles by new Bail laws, will simply ratchet up the non-custodial approach when the perpetrator is presented after remand for their hearing.
So, the reprieve from crime by ‘no bail’ Remand, will be short-lived and be merely, in the eye of the perpetrator, a minor inconvenience. Remand will only provide a hiatus unless, upon conviction, the juvenile does some time, be it shorter periods than adults.
Penalties must align with “kid time”.
What is damming is that in the media reports on school crime and carjackings, there is not one mention of how VicPol proposes to stop or even dramatically reduce this blight on our community.
These two aspects of school crime and carjackings are intrinsically linked as the vast majority, if not all, of the offenders involved in carjackings went to school, so the logic would be to tackle the issue through the school system and, in that effort, mitigate the school crime at the same time giving our kids a chance to be educated without fear and distraction.
“An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”
Whether this concept will become a reality in Victoria again hinges on who is appointed the next Chief Commissioner because of the community policing philosophy. Crime prevention has all but disappeared from the force’s operational practises.
For the benefit of Victoria, the selection panel needs to ask the following questions of each applicant,
‘What will you do to reduce the crime in schools and the carjackings?’
An answer of increased patrols and the usual talking points would immediately disqualify the applicant. The only way to reduce crime is by innovative, proactive measures; any applicant worth their salt will have thought-through strategies.
‘How will you measure Commanders’ performances’?
Failure to set enforceable Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) based on performance for all managers throughout the force would be a failure.
‘How will you manage Commander’s accountability?’
Anything short of an applicant being prepared to exit their Chief’s contract voluntarily if found to be failing to perform would be unacceptable. That would be the accountability standard required of all Police leaders.
We do not want a Chief focused on or bragging about crime-solving. We want a Chief Commissioner with a vision not influenced and bound by traditional speaking points but one who can see through the fog and have a crystal-clear appreciation of the importance of reorganising the Force to positively influence the prevention model.
Preventing crime gazumps solving a crime in the first place.
Just ask crime victims which strategy they would prefer.
Many plaudits are attributed to the crime solution proposed by the new bail laws. Herald Sun 20th March 2025.
Although the changes are welcome and will have a positive impact, they are highly unlikely to be the ‘silver bullet’ hoped for. Short-term reprieve for victims is welcome, but long-term gains will still be challenging.
The Bail law changes are akin to taking to a massive pile of ‘record crime’ with a teaspoon rather than a decent frontend loader. The pile will grow quicker than the solutions applied.
What is misleading is the role of Bail or Remand; they are ostensibly mechanisms to ensure a person charged with a crime appears in court to answer the charges.
What was lacking was the consideration of community safety. It was a disappointing omission, but how the judiciary interprets these changes will be interesting to watch.
That a perpetrator has a propensity to continue offending after being granted bail makes the continuation of bail unacceptable. Therefore, the perpetrator must be remanded in custody, no ifs, buts or excuses.
Being held in custody preceding a court appearance to answer the charges is not a punishment for a crime; punishment is the judiciary’s role when the case is determined.
The problem we are facing, which needs urgent remedial attention, is the length of time juveniles, or, for that matter, anybody is held in custody without being convicted of the charges they face.
There is no doubt that for very serious capital crimes, the period in detention would vary dramatically for a juvenile charged with lesser offences.
The solution to this problem lies with the courts, which seem very inefficient. They spend most of their time remanding or considering applications for bail and procedural matters rather than getting on with hearing cases.
By the time a juvenile gets to have their case heard; the time on remand is predominantly deducted as part of the penalty, meaning that after the finding of guilt, there is generally little in the way of punishment that the judiciary applies.
This again sends the wrong message to the youths; they can claim they didn’t get a penalty for their indiscretion, and it then gives them bragging rights.
This issue must be resolved before we achieve meaningful inroads into reining in juvenile crime. And that is before long-term strategies that address anti-social behaviour before it develops.
Changes the CAA propose will further strengthen the process and reduce even further the likelihood of an innocent youth being incarcerated for a lengthy period and negate the much-argued proposition that putting juveniles in jail will make them worse.
Any harm done will be minimised if the remand periods are much shorter, providing less opportunity for youths to learn from other detainees. Careful management of these facilities will further reduce adverse impacts on those on remand.
Remand periods must be reduced to days or weeks, not months; whatever needs to be done to achieve this must be done immediately – no excuses.
The CAA has a strong record of accurately predicting future developments, like the current youth crime tsunami, years before it blossomed to its current levels. However, the impending disaster brewing causes the CAA members to lose sleep.
Daily, in all media, there is an indisputable increase in people, professionals, and concerned citizens, from parents to shopkeepers, speaking out like never before about the criminal behaviour of our youth and the visceral behaviour of young people.
One of the most plausible reasons for this negative growth of criminal and anti-social behaviour amongst youth was identified by Psychologist Maria Ruberto, reported in the Herald Sun on 23rd of March 2023.
Roberto identifies a failure in resilience at the core of many issues facing young people. The inability to make rational or informed decisions or any decision at all, including saying no, provides the environment for young people to be swept up in anti-social and criminal behaviours, which groups predominantly undertake.
As she points out, the parents have a lot to answer for in over-protecting young people, avoiding the necessity for them to develop reliance.
However, it is not just the parents to blame because much of this lack of resilience has been planted in their parents by the mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic, where the government took away the ability of all citizens to make their own decisions.
Rather than being informers, providing guidance and combating resources, the Government made decisions for everybody and enforced them with the Police.
The real impact of this incompetent management of the Pandemic is only starting to be felt; there is more to come, a lot more.
Identifying the issue is only the start; dealing with it is the real challenge.
Unfortunately, it seems that those with influence see only one solution, as detailed recently by the Youth Commissioner,
“Instead of sweeping laws to toughen bail tests, we want to see investment in assessments, interventions and supports that will tackle the drivers of each child’s offending and effectively support rehabilitation.”
The Commissioner is not alone; she has supporters of this hollow mantra, predominantly academics by profession and performance, claiming that her approach is the way to solve the problem.
The problems with this approach are that there are never any practical programs to deliver, an approach that has failed us for two decades and that the words never contain purpose, direction or action. This approach is an academic fantasy wish list that nobody will ever implement because the proponents are not actually or morally accountable, and there is no evidence that this approach will even work.
Pontification of itself is never a solution.
At best, we can, with care, devise strategies that will slowly change the prevailing youth behavioural demise. We cannot wait longer; the longer we wait, the more entrenched this behaviour becomes.
The CAA is exploring the establishment of a Youth Justice Advisory Panel consisting of pragmatic solution-orientated community leaders who together can design a plan to address the problem. Developing solutions that are pragmatic, effective and affordable to implement.
Holistically approaching the issue and providing consistency in the delivery of a program across a swathe of youth ages will be the key; the message must be consistent from preschool to secondary and beyond, with community initiatives developed to help guide children to adulthood.
The real challenge will be in developing new and innovative ways to deliver the required services and harvesting the positive aspects of all the current players in this space.
Parallel to this approach, strategies must be developed to equip parents to understand better their child’s development needs and coping strategies to assist them.
As important as a focus should be on children, the focus must be equally shared with parents and those in our community charged with interacting with children, whether in law enforcement, education or social development.
The proposed Panel could provide input to the Government, which is ultimately responsible for this issue and must act irrespective of ideological views; we cannot afford the luxury of those views hindering outcomes of value.
We envisage the Panel not being numerically large, quality rather than quantity, and representatives with a high profile from a broad cross-section of the community.
Established and operated by people who care.
The CAA would like anyone interested in participating as a Panel member to lodge their details and a summary of their credentials at ceo@caainc.org.au.
As predictable as night follows day, all the pundits have raised their heads in condemning locking serious juvenile offenders up on remand to ensure they face court for their alleged crimes while preventing the commission of further crimes.
Be under no illusion the chances of a 10-year-old being held on remand is next to zero, as is any child. A child will have to do more than commit just one offence before the new bail laws take effect, remembering that the vast majority of young people coming before a court have already received multiple formal cautions by Police under the police diversion strategy before Police charge them and take them to court for repeated offences.
Although they may have committed more than one offence and received multiple cautions, they come before the Court as a first offender, and the cautions are not used against them.
A proper reform would be for the Police Cautions to be included in the matters put before the judiciary when deciding penalties or applications for bail – the judiciary should be fully informed.
It is not the locking up that is the problem per se; it is what is done in the management of juveniles in detention, and that needs a considerable shakeup or perhaps the complete removal of current practices on the basis they have and will continue to fail.
It is often said that to lock up a child will make them worse, but worse than what?
If they come out of detention worse, there is only one culprit: poor management of the child while detained.
The pundits reported on in The Age, March 16, are the Australian Medical Association, the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners, the Australian Human Rights Commissioner, Victoria‘s Principal Commissioner for Children and Young People, Liana Buchanan, and the Commissioner for Aboriginal Children and Young People, Meena Sing. If they round out the people the government relies on for advice, it is no wonder we are in despair with the youths.
There would be grave doubt that any of these people had ever dealt with recidivists, so their opinion is purely academic and void of pragmatism because they don’t know.
However, the real standout was Victoria‘s Principal Commissioner for Children and Young People, Liana Buchanan, and Commissioner for Aboriginal Children and Young People, Meena Sing, who were motivated to issue a joint statement.
“We understand that Victorians want to feel safe and that particular cases profiled in the media have impacted that sense of safety,” they said. “However, we are concerned the bail reforms proposed by the Victorian government will radically increase the number of children remanded in custody and will not make the community safer.
This may also indicate where the problems are for young people.
These two allegedly esteemed bureaucrats took the tried and tested method of deflecting responsibility by blaming the media,
‘…the particular cases profiled in the media have impacted that sense of safety’, they said, referring to the community angst.
Sorry, but it is not the media causing the mayhem; it is those children supposedly represented but government agencies who cause the lack of safety in the community.
The alternate view of these laws reeks of defending failed functions.
Followed by
“Instead of sweeping laws to toughen bail tests, we want to see investment in assessments, interventions and supports that will tackle the drivers of each child’s offending and effectively support rehabilitation.”
Sadly, those quoted and like thinkers have followed this path for a decade or more, and where that has got us? Because of this fanciful failed approach, hundreds, if not thousands, of children, have lives ruined and the lives of many other citizens because pragmatic and effective strategies have not been employed.
There is an urgent need to improve the standard of care while children are in detention to make the experience of value to them so that they may see the error of their ways. That does not mean enjoyable.
The discipline they need to make their way in society must be foremost in their learning.
Above all else, understand the Bail Laws are not talking about a sentence where the child must stand to account for their misdeeds, but Remand, is a process to ensure they attend Court for their hearing and lose the right to bail because of their continued offending creating the need to protect the community.
It was also reported that for
“Jacinta Allan, Police Minister Anthony Carbines, Attorney-General Sonya Kilkenny, Department of Justice Secretary Kate Houghton and a dozen or so ministerial and departmental advisers, it was a long weekend of a very different kind.
All day Saturday, Sunday, Labour Day Monday and right up until midday on Tuesday when Cabinet was due to meet to consider proposed changes to Victoria’s bail laws, this working group was sweating over the final shape and details of the reforms”.
The Ministers could have saved the sweat by getting a new lot of advisers, as this current lot were not helpful.
It was also reported that,
“A current Senate inquiry into youth justice cites Victoria as an exemplar jurisdiction because it incarcerates children at a lower rate than any other state in Australia. The inquiry heard evidence that on any given night, there were on average 88 children in detention in Victoria, compared to 240 in NSW and 317 in Queensland”. – The Age
This is the problem exposed. Not only is it a fallacy to assume that there is less of a crime problem in Victoria, we know there is not; however, a more useful statistic would be the number of children on remand and their recidivism rate after their legal matters are resolved.
It would be helpful to know how effectively we manage these youths and provide the opportunity to improve the process dramatically. The current regimes are failing, encouraging the judiciary not to use the process, an easy out.
This is either plain old, everyday incompetent groupthink, or worse, telling the government what they think they want to hear.
Either way, if this is the quality of the advice the government relies on, then no wonder where we are where we are with Youth Crime.
Each of these people or organisations identified should hang their collective heads in shame for getting our miscreant youth where they are.
Unfortunately, until some accountability for performance is introduced to this process, nothing will change – contributors and decision-makers are never responsible for the outcomes they promulgate.
The CAA applauds the belated ban on edged weapons (Machetes) and, like every other Victorian, demands that the ban be immediate.
There is no plausible excuse for a delay.
That a ban was not in place a long time ago beggars’ belief; however, the belated action that will take nine months before coming into effect is absolutely ridiculous; just what are the government planners thinking?
Haven’t they worked it out? It is not the weapon that is the problem. It is the idiot holding onto it.
If they seriously think that the perpetrators who use these weapons are going to show good community responsibility and put their prized weapons and symbols of power into a bin, the government planners are delusional.
For goodness’ sake, these weapons are status symbols that will disappear under their bed, not in a government bin.
And they will be replaced by Mum’s stainless-steel carver.
The Government needs to realise that banning the products altogether will only develop black market trading in the items, playing into the current black market (organised crime) marketing strategy – identify what the market wants, and if it is illegal, go for it.
This strategy works for the crooks, creating unintended consequences, as happened with tobacco. The weapons will probably be sold under the counter from the same shops.
The solution is banning the carrying of edged weapons of every description and giving the Police additional powers to search and seize, supported by mandated penalties to force the anthropomorphic magistracy, where coincidently many of our society ills are created because of their ineptitude, to undertake their role to keep us safe.
It’s not the weapon but the environment where it is located.
Mum’s stainless-steel carver could be the weapon a person is charged with possessing.
At 2.00 am, with a group of mates, the carver is as lethal as a machete and attracts the same status.
If care is not taken, the kitchen arsenal will replace the machete, and we will be no better off. The blades may be shorter, but the victim is just as dead.
It is not anti-social to own an edged weapon, but as soon as it is carried in a public place, the rules change; it’s not the weapon; it is the intended use, intimidation, attack or defence that is the issue.
When the planners grasp that concept, then they might come up with an effective solution like reviewing current legislation and, where necessary, tweaking it to provide the Police with the capacity to properly address the issue rather than being hamstrung by nice restrictive policies sponsored by the socialist elite.
Starting to think of the Police operational necessities (where the rubber hits the road) may go a long way to solving this issue.
Viewing this matter through a political prism will be the downfall of any efforts to curb unnecessary deaths and intimidation.
The vastly belated announcement by Victoria’s Labor Government of strengthened bail laws is welcomed. The Community Advocacy Alliance Inc. (CAA) warned ten years ago that Victoria would face a juvenile crime tsunami. We were ignored. Consequently, the number of victims of crime, and particularly of crimes of violence by juveniles has reached totally unacceptable levels.
The changes to bail laws and reintroduction of offences for criminal acts committed while on bail is a necessary move.
These steps are a government reaction to community pressure.
However, the real solution to juvenile crime can only come from the immediate introduction of proactive measures.
Every school must be required to immediately introduce a code of conduct for students. The standards of behaviour required must be clearly articulated and enforced.
A primary function of the school curriculum must be teaching the basics of good citizenship.
The CAA can provide the structure of a program, based on ten themes, which would make a real and lasting difference to the future behaviour of most students. This program should be delivered by police in schools. This format was very successful in Victoria from 1989 to 2006 as evidenced by a study by Monash University released in 2004.
We call on the Government to immediately take the next essential proactive step and reintroduce the Police in Schools Program. The CAA is willing to assist.
Victoria’s newly minted Opposition leader has wasted no time wading into the youth debate. His enthusiasm is palpable and very welcome, and clearly, he is a conviction politician who, in a leadership role, augers well for Victoria’s future.
His vision for improving the management of youthful offenders has a lot going for it, but he has missed a couple of keys that have got us to where we are today and must be addressed first.
The reality of the current situation in juvenile management is that we have seen the failure of overly punitive approaches of years past as we have seen the obverse where the perpetrators avoid accountability; both options are failures, so we need to look at why.
A significant factor is the inability of the ‘judiciary’ and ‘the system’ to recognise that they are dealing with children who have a totally different ethos from the youth justice system leaders and policymakers.
A key factor in the make-up of the youth psyche is the ‘here and now’ syndrome, where they live in the moment and do not overthink further than what they are engaged in. That only comes with maturity.
What this does is wind the clock, to time differently to adults. What may be a relatively short time for an adult can be an eternity for a child. To see how this works, offer a child a meal at McDonald’s in about 15 minutes. You can then observe their reaction as their time ticks by, as opposed to yours.
This time phenomenon must be used in the Judicial management of Juvenile perpetrators.
The other critical issue is accountability. Young people must be taught that any action that is not acceptable must have consequences if they breach community norms. Whether criminal or otherwise, if their behaviour is not corrected, then escalation is inevitable.
Most responsible parents will correct children’s behaviour from a very young age. Whether it is the parent’s fear of averting the child from danger or simply convenience, the parental approach must always include a consequence. Parents quickly learn that without a consequence, whatever that may be, the child’s behaviour will not alter.
The alternative ‘rational’ approach of some parents is where they think their young child will respond and understand a lecture on behaviour. Lecturing 3-4-year-olds in the centre of a Supermarket aisle is a classic that shows the parent’s ignorance and explains the child’s misbehaviour. Expecting a young child to rationalise like an adult is a major mistake.
The CAA agrees with the concept of diversion for young people but insists that there must be a backup plan to ensure the ‘consequences’ are applied to gain compliance. It is up to the child whether they are prepared to comply.
In Mr Battin’s approach, we are concerned about an eagerness to look overseas to seek a remedy. That will only provide an excuse for all and sundry within the Government to exploit the junkets rather than deal with the issue by applying lateral thinking.
The overseas experiences can be researched online without incurring the cost of being spent on a ‘solution finding tour’. Moreover, the experiences overseas were homegrown, which should also be our solution. The tendency to look elsewhere ignores the issue of cultural variations and, therefore, is unlikely capable of just being lifted and applied here and expecting a positive outcome.
The secret to success is to provide a plan that is simple, straightforward, and easy to implement in a cost-effective way that can be easily measured and easily modified to make inevitable necessary improvements measured against the pre-determined matrixes.
Using current government resources to avoid additional costs, the CAA proposal must be seriously considered.
Police Deputy Commissioner Neil Paterson has conceded that the Police are frustrated by the leniency of the Victorian Bail Laws at a Stonington Police forum, as reported in the Herald Sun on the 7th of February 2025.
The Commissioner said that Victoria Police was advocating for change in the Court System.
It was reported that in a shocking admission by Deputy Paterson, “the force had never arrested more people for serious crimes than we have in at last 12 months.”
Nice of the Deputy to instil more fear into the community.
This admission, of course, did little to allay the community’s fears, but what is most alarming, according to the report, is that the only strategy presented to the community was the standard police line given to every such challenge of their performance.
“The policing panel announced increased foot and bicycle patrols to monitor areas including Chapel St in addition to existing initiatives to tackle crime.”
It takes a bit more than monitoring a crime hotspot, and the Zero Tolerance with the Broken Window Police strategy applied to these areas would be the most effective response.
Although a relatively short-term strategy, usually 6 months or so, the other areas of policing not reported as being discussed are proactive initiatives. The monitoring patrols, although proactive, are very limited without a broader application of proactive strategies that have a longer-term impact.
There is a major flaw in this announcement, as we have several CAA members facing similar concerns in their community and have been given the same hollow assurances. Patrols for a very limited period who do nothing more than monitor activity without enforcement, which is a ludicrous approach the community is heartily sick of.
Within a short time of these inevitably hollow assurances, the patrols diminish, while the problems persist, the police disappear completely, leaving the residents with no discernible difference in their ‘air of menace’, as one resident described the situation.
It is incredibly disappointing that the police command cannot come up with any new approaches and blaming the Courts and Bail Laws while admitting there are multiple parts to the Justice system and trying to shift all the blame on to the Justice system is disingenuous when police are clearly failing in their primary function. Preventing Crime.
If we are accused of banging on about the role of Police and schools, we plead guilty as charged.
The reason is two irrefutable facts.
Firstly, all, and we mean every one of the juvenile miscreants who are terrorising our community, go through the education/schools system.
Non-attendance is the first indicator of those children who need special attention.
So it is without apology that we push for that being the place to start, ground zero of criminality, and the Police must play a critical role in this.
After much criticism of VicPol by us and others of the lack of a Police in Schools Program (PSIP), a quasi-Police Schools program was introduced. This role was added to the commitments of police, who were already overloaded. And it is the next best thing to useless in this fight. It is unfair to the members and has extremely low effectiveness in the crime fight.
The reason this pretend program won’t work is that by its nature, it is spasmodic, and children only respond to regular commitments and will only develop meaningful relationships with the Police member as a person if the relationship is stable. It is precisely the same as teaching children about mathematics learning by rote and consistency. It is also the same dynamic that builds effective families- consistency.
It should also be accepted that a contributing factor in the attrition rate of Police is the lack of proactive work being undertaken. The Police members see the impact of juvenile crime and the lack of diversion available to them to steer young people away from crime, leading to their frustration with the policing role’s effectiveness.
There can be no better example of frustration leading to the loss of a very competent Police officer than the Opposition leader, Brad Battin, who was heavily involved in Operation New Start, a police volunteer organisation partnered by teachers and Service Club Members who worked together to ensure young people got to and stayed at school.
VicPol allegedly cancelled the program on the basis that it was too labour-intensive. That the program worked very well was not a consideration. The program was scuttled. Brad had had enough and resigned from the Force.
Now mature adults who went through the original Police In Schools Program can still and often do quote the name of the Police member who helped guide them many years ago, which is an accurate measure of the effectiveness of that program.
Being at the school on the same day at the same time to deliver a structured curriculum is the key, and anything less is of seriously questionable effectiveness and rates in the category of spin, something to distract critics.
The Government, Police or even, to a lesser extent, the schools tend to overlook the inescapable reality that amid those students walking through the door for their first day of school are the future juvenile offenders who will end up wreaking havoc in our community.
The community is getting sick and tired of bureaucratic buck-passing and inaction as those responsible seemingly take no action to stem the tide.
We cannot point to one initiative the government has introduced that stems this problem.
On the contrary, the government has introduced initiatives that feed into the juvenile cohort and are irresponsible.
The raising of the age of criminal responsibility allows those children who start their life of crime at a young age to escape any sanction to modify their behaviour until they are sometimes three to four years older. By then, they are well entrenched in the criminal sphere – too late to berate or lecture because it won’t work.
Softening Bail and custodial sentences to the point of abolishing them also feeds into the rise of juvenile crime, as there are no consequences for their behaviour. Moreover, criminal enterprises, whether local or large ones, can entice young people to commit crimes on the basis that nothing will happen if they are caught.
The second irrefutable fact is the solutions are in front of them.
Having programs to ensure school attendance and building relationships between the children and the Police as the symbol of authority in the classroom and socially at Blue Light Disco’s will work.
The highly successful Police In Schools program, Operation New Start, a program that got kids to school, and Blue Light are three initiatives that need to be urgently reintroduced to arrest the rot, devastating the future of too many of our children.
It is sad that Blue Light, which started in Victoria, is thriving in every other state and territory, with many Blue Lights operating in other countries but very few operating in Victoria.
These programs fed off each other and were highly successful when they were introduced.
The Force continues to promote the notion that they are understaffed, and to a degree, this may be true. However, staffing is all about priorities and stopping crime before it happens must be rated as the primary use of resources.
Any run-of-the-mill manager can achieve more productivity with more or unlimited staff; whether they are effective is moot; it takes a leader to prioritise the way out of the imbroglio of juvenile crime.
Crowing about arrests, as is often the case, as the police executive bustle to promote their performance; sadly, catching crooks is a higher priority than stopping crime in the first place. Task Forces are prolific, but not one is dedicated to stopping crime before it happens. They are all reactive, responding to demands that have occurred.
The frontline Police know what must be done; only the Executive seem to have their heads in the sand, hoping the problem will go away instead of making the hard decisions to change the course of criminality and Force priorities.
VicPol may even slow the exodus of police from their careers if members realise that they can become involved in meaningful programs that make a difference. Simply taking the miscreants to court to be continually bailed and then at court hearing all the excuses as to why the perpetrator should not be locked up to protect the offender from themselves and the broader community is extremely frustrating for police who know that there are better ways.
Often, understated is the financial impact on all victims as they open their annual insurance bills to see substantial increases and no matter how those increases are subject to spin, the reality is that insurance companies do not lose money as they adjust their premiums to the claims. With out-of-control crime, those premiums are skyrocketing.
Crime prevention is just as, or even more critical than, arresting criminals; just ask the victims.
A headline in the Herald Sun on the 21st of January 2024 stated that reported crime at schools is at a 10-year high, with classroom crimes hitting 120 times a week.
While a percentage of offences have been after hours, with schools needing to suspend 90 students daily, a real problem of discipline is exposed.
Further, if anybody does not see the correlation between crime in our schools and the upsurge in juvenile crime, more generally, they have their head in the sand.
These problems can’t be reasonably palmed off as crimes by others outside school hours; there is an inescapable nexus between the school environment and after-hours crime, for the most part.
Nothing in the statistics would indicate that the students are not responsible for much of the after-hours of crime.
Schools should be a place of learning, and learning to be a criminal is not one of the skills we would embrace.
It was reported that schools can exercise discretion as to whether to report an incident to the police, and this is part of the problem leading to inconsistencies in crime responses.
Police are the only ones with the legislative power of discretion, and when a crime comes to the notice of a school, it must be reported to the police; if not a legal obligation, the school has a moral one to the whole school and general community, to which it is responsible. Protecting a student from an investigation is not the school’s role, as the investigation is how the truth will be determined; schools are not equipped to perform this function.
That this problem has reached this stage indicates that Victoria Police have had their priorities wrong and have had them wrong for nearly 15 years.
Interestingly, the CAA was established 10 years ago this year to address the issue of the Police’s failure to manage youth crime adequately.
Central to the management of youth crime is the reintroduction of the Police in Schools Program (PSIP)
The current schools program Victoria Police currently operates, is a shadow of the real program and probably no more effective than no program. You can’t expect positive results from a spasmodic ‘half-hearted’ approach. The ‘when we have time to do it’ approach will not work.
The CAA tried to establish a Police Veterans in Schools Program, and despite the best adverse efforts by the then Chief Commissioner Ashton to stymie the program, it was thwarted in the end by COVID-19. The first Police Veteran to enter a school under this program coincided with the introduction of COVID restrictions.
We recruited the first 12 schools we approached, and recruited a number of Police veterans to service them following the PSIP curriculum model.
Unfortunately, we are not well enough resourced to try it again. Still, there is no reason that VicPol could not recruit retired members to fulfil the Police in Schools Officer role, reducing the impact on other operational needs.
The argument proffered is that VicPol’s resources cannot support such a program. Still, Policing is about priorities, and when the Force has a reactive corporate mindset, proactive work to prevent crime pays the priority price.
Ironically, the Chief Commissioners in recent history who have achieved outstanding results each had the balance between proactive and reactive about right, and crime was managed. We also had a much safer State and a Police Force that was highly respected and engaged.
These shocking statistics are the responsibility of the current Chief Commissioner and the Police Executive, nobody else, and it is within their remit to resolve the matters.
The place to start is the schools. Don’t blame the parents, the legislators, or the courts, although they play a part in it. The blame is sheeted directly to the Force management. Excuses are a sign of inept managers. It is no doubt they will argue they haven’t got the resources, but they haven’t got the resources not to do it either.
We understand there is currently an internal management review in place, which would provide the opportunity for a good look at the Force’s priorities and effective management of resources.
This review must go beyond just ‘shuffling the deck chairs’ to make it look like the Force is doing something, but experience tells us unless the review addresses all the causes, nothing much will change.
One area that needs serious re-evaluation and de-prioritising is the task force groups; historically, they have been the easy go-to tool of police management, but the impact on the ability of the Force to provide adequate policing overall is adversely impacted and rarely a consideration, generally leading to more crime than the Task Forces are set to address.
There will always be a need for some Task Forces, but their establishment must be carefully managed as once established, it is very hard to invoke a sunset clause to their operation as the participants quickly gain a comfort factor in the privilege of working on a Task Force, being able to ditch their uniform in favour of a US Special Forces style dress up, generally avoiding shift work and gaining their rest days predominately on weekends, a cherished part of work-life balance not shared by Police working on stations, the real front line.
These task forces aggravate the operations of VicPol because the best and brightest, hardest workers are usually selected for these roles seen as prestigious, leaving stations void of experienced police.
It is too easy a solution to any crime outbreak to establish a task force or a targeted group by any other name. These groups are often given other titles to avoid the perception of the incorrect weighting of this type of policing.
As an example of the types of inefficiencies, a drug dealer moved into our local area and openly traded his wares predominantly on a Thursday. Lines of cars would enter the street with a line of people all carrying similar $2 candy-stripped carrier bags, obviously containing ill-gotten gains to trade for drugs.
The community reported the matter with an offer of an observation post in the house directly opposite, which was readily accepted by the Police.
This criminal activity was blatant to the degree that the transactions could be seen clearly from the observation point.
The community expected the matter to be resolved within a couple of weeks, maybe, but the activity continued for over three months, with the Police observing and the crook expanding his business to a nearby rented factory, so prolific was the activity.
A properly planned and orchestrated police operation could have netted numerous thieves and drug users on many occasions, including the primary offender, and the result would have been no less effective than dragging it out for over three months; after all, the penalty is the prerogative of the courts and all this extra work, we would argue, would not add to the severity of the sentence once the primary perpetrator was eventually arrested. However, the delay would adversely contribute to the crime statistics.
One thing is for sure: the responsible citizen who tolerated the disruption to their family by Police sitting in their front room for months on end, 24/7 will not offer that privilege to the Police again. Particularly, when technology could have achieved better quality evidence.
Alienating the citizens who hitherto supported police is not good policing by any measure.
A pragmatic measurement of this operation would demonstrate that when all matters are taken into consideration, it was inefficient and poorly managed.
The question, therefore, arises of how many other similar operations are inefficient and should have their resources redirected to proactive prevention measures and the operational front line.
A new Magistrate appointment dedicated to dealing with repeat juvenile offenders has been announced, Herald Sun 20th of January 2025.
Does this mean the Government has lost confidence in the magistracy of this State to deal with repeat offenders, or is it nothing more than a ploy to give the appearance of doing something? Given that they haven’t addressed a primary cause, the failure of legislation, this is probably only a political spin.
As they say, the proof will be in the pudding, but we are not confident that anything will change.
When reviewing this Government approach to juvenile crime, to suggest it is ‘lacklustre’ is an understatement.
More than half the Children’s Courts across the State have been closed, and weak bail laws allow juveniles to ‘give the thumb’ to authority.
A whole cohort of juvenile offenders has been excluded from the Justice system by raising the age of criminal accountability; therefore, the younger cohort offends with impunity and avoids accountability, so no intervention can occur to steer them away from joining the ranks of the repeat offenders.
The youth crime surging to a 14-year high is only the beginning, not the end; we have more pain to come. And that is the pain suffered by the victims whilst the judiciary is immune.
If the government has not lost faith in the Magistrates of this State as this appointment indicates, the public certainly has. Young thugs, by their actions, treat the Courts, at best, as an inconvenience or, more likely, a joke.
Continually, we read how young thugs are bailed for various very serious crimes that are committed while they are on bail for equally serious charges.
It is not uncommon for thugs who have been bailed on multiple occasions, sometimes 30-50 times, to be granted bail again. And that is ridiculous and unconscionable. This is aggravated by the rising age of criminality, where there is no intervention to redirect the younger juveniles but instead teaches them there are no consequences for their criminal actions.
The Government is blind or ignoring the causes; where do they think the quantitative surge in juveniles is fed from? It is the 8-12 year olds providing the impetus.
Figures previously released to the Herald Sun revealed more than 100 kids aged between 10 and 17 years old were involved in at least 30 crimes each in 2024.
That number has tripled over the last five years.
There were just 34 youths offending at a minimum of 30 crimes a year in 2019.
The 103 repeat offenders recorded last year carried out at least 3090 crimes in 2024 alone, an average of eight offences per day.- Herald Sun.
The actual number of offences committed is doubtless very much higher.
The major problem is either the structure of legislation currently in vogue or the judiciary have steered away from convention and have embarked on ideological fantasy escapade, or both, which is our pick.
It was not so long ago; Police were reporting that 30 or so prime thugs were committing the majority of the crimes. That has now not only been debunked, but the number has tripled to 103.
How the appointment of one Magistrate will rectify the anomalies of a broken judicial process is beyond comprehension.
An outstanding omission in the Government’s response was the limited reference to Victims by the Youth Justice Minister quoted as saying,
“We know there is a group of repeat offenders driving the rise in serious crimes – that’s why we’re taking action to hold them to account while offering support to help young people turn their lives around.”
Youth Justice Minister Enver Erdogan said: “This is another important step in delivering a justice system that protects the community and rehabilitates young people”.
“We want to help victims get closure by holding young people to account and helping those heading down a wrong path realise the effects of their actions.”
Minister, if you want to help victims, helping them get closure genuinely is arrant nonsense. How about first stopping the crime and the impact on victims? How about re-introducing some of the past programs, not just paying lip service to the past programs but genuinely embracing them? Why do you want to turn lives around rather than stop them from offending in the first place, which would be the sensible approach?
The key is directing young people away from crime before, not after the fact. It is called prevention.
We are seeing disturbing reports of student misbehaviour in schools, and yet the proven Police in Schools Program, Operation New Start and Blue Light, has not been embraced to deal with this; instead, a facsimile to look like the original police school program is touted but it has not been demonstrated it works. A mere shadow of the real program.
We are unsure, but the age change to criminal liability may have completely scuttled the Police Cautioning program, the real bulwark against younger children moving through the criminal spheres to become the next generation of repeat offenders. Although it can’t be quantified accurately, the Police Cautioning Program was responsible for diverting vast numbers of young people from a life of crime.
We wish the new Magistrate well but are not hopeful that she will make a scrap of difference. At the same time, the Government fails to acknowledge and address their failures in relation to Bail, other legislative blunders and Police operational failures that feed this growing problem.
With this new Magistrate’s depth of experience, she should first be tasked with reviewing the legislation to make it effective, and then she may have something to work with. Still, as the status quo continues, she has little hope of pushing back against the Restorative Justice ideology that has infected our judiciary, one of the main causes of the judicial failures.
There is no adequate expression to describe the youth problem in this State.
Is the problem with the Police, the Courts, the juvenile legal services, the schools, parents or the mishmash of the government departments?
Quite clearly, the problems are with all of them. They all have one common denominator: they are not accountable in any tangible way for their failures.
It would be an interesting challenge to examine the performance of each resource and determine its effectiveness. Unfortunately, the spin doctors would have a field day explaining why their organisation is faultless; it will invoke the ‘it is him over there’ syndrome.
It truly is a mishmash when you ask Google AI to determine which Government department is responsible for youth-
The Department of Families, Fairness and Housing (DFFH) in Victoria is responsible for youth, and the Minister for Youth is Natalie Suleyman MP. The DFFH also supports the Minister for Children and the Minister for Disability.
The Commission for Children and Young People (CCYP) is an independent body that promotes the safety and well-being of children and young people in Victoria. The CCYP’s vision is to respect and defend the rights of children and young people.
The Department of Justice and Community Safety Victoria supervises children and young people in the criminal justice system.
Notably absent from CCYP’s charter is the promotion of the obligations and responsibilities of children that must go with protection of their rights.
It is not some aberration that the offences being committed by youths have been climbing in intensity for some time, highlighted by the level of violence currently being reported daily.
It is fast becoming a war zone out there.
What has become even more obvious is that the current systems, programs and strategies for keeping youth to be safe and away from violence and crime are not working.
Youths armed with machete-type weapons taking on Police at a Christmas Carol’s service has got to be the absolute last straw.
It would also not be a surprise if we found out the perpetrators responsible for the firebombing of the Jewish synagogue last week could well be the work of juveniles.
Juveniles again running amok in the CBD highlights the ever-present danger to all citizens by this crazy state of affairs.
There have been, and there will be, inevitable deaths as a result of this behaviour. Recently, it has become perilously close to being reality when a juvenile involved in a home invasion tried to attack a young mother who had a two-month-old baby in her arms. The baby suffered severe head injuries.
That the incident happened in another State is irrelevant but demonstrates the major danger of violent juveniles. They do not consider any consequences that deter them from this violence.
Many years ago, a highly respected trainer of police recruits, Les Harly, an ex-Olympic boxer, repeatedly warned recruits that the most dangerous perpetrator they would confront with a gun was a juvenile because they would not consider the consequences of pulling the trigger.
This is sage advice today as police will inevitably confront armed teenagers not with machetes as is the current favoured weapon, but guns.
The consequence of unchecked escalation of violence.
Still, the underscored effect on families whose safe haven, their home, is regularly violated is the most impacted and has the longest severe effect on the families.
Where do we start?
Our civic leaders of all political persuasions must first acknowledge there is a problem.
Then, a team must be assembled to advise on how the issues can be addressed.
As complicated as the problem first appears, the solution or solutions are easy to identify as the activities of the juveniles themselves provide the answers.
If a child is told not to put their hand in a flame but ignore the advice, then the pain of the burn will dissuade them from ever trying it again; there is a consequence for the action.
If they play on the roadway and ignore parental advice, with the parent resorting to dragging them off the road, the lesson is learnt: there is a consequence for their action.
Considering solutions from the top down would always fail, but we never expected the spectacular failure we are currently witnessing. The terrifying part of this trend, and like all trends, it will continue to escalate, is the current trajectory bodes very poorly for all of us, including the youth.
The arrest of a juvenile perpetrator is the closest we come to a consequence of their actions; however, the impact of the arrest is diluted by the legal process that follows.
While the judiciary believes their actions are compassionate and balanced, what they think is irrelevant as much as they won’t admit it. The key is what the perpetrators believe, being lectured doesn’t cut it.
The imperative is that the perpetrators understand that there are consequences for their illegal activities that are not palatable to them, irrespective of what the judiciary might consider appropriate.
What the judiciary might consider a consequence is useless if the perpetrator does not see it that way.
All the words directed at juveniles by the judiciary are just white noise to them, and anyway, their lawyer speaks for them, so in their eyes, it doesn’t impact them.
The youths consider walking out of Court, whether on bail or with a non-custodial sentence, as ‘I beat it again’. No matter the threats and lectures they are given during the process.
There is also the phenomenon promoted by older criminals that allows the youths to be recruited for crime; the nothing will happen if you are caught’ principle.
Many young people are aspirational to climb further up the criminal pecking order and share in the rewards, albeit ill-gotten, and this is a serious motivator.
The other motivator for youth is the influence (bragging rights) within their sphere, and that can become all-encompassing for younger people driving their lives. That there are no consequences for their behaviour has built their ethos.
In either of these two examples, the common denominator and drivers are the lack of consequences other than the risk of being arrested, and even that is diluted because the Courts do not fulfil their function as the community intends.
Some time ago, a high-profile person working in the youth space for a respected youth organisation reacted to our suggestion that as part of an accountability strategy, parents could, in consultation with the Police, have young people lose access to their mobile phones as part of the Police cautioning program for a period.
The response we received is a demonstration of how some with a socialist ideological bent view punishment or consequences as irrelevant and only promote more antisocial behaviour.
The person became very indignant at the suggestion and claimed that it was absolutely the wrong approach because all the young person would do was act out until they got it back.
Doh! That response proves the suspicion that many working in the youth space do not understand their role. Giving into the youth is the antithesis of effective youth management. Rewarding bad behaviour will never work.
The issues are monumental, but unless a new approach or an old one in part is re-introduced, then the consequences really do not bear thinking about.
In a new documentary, Port Coquitlam, teens describe how safer supply drugs are diverted to the streets, contributing to youth drug use.
CAA comment;
Victoria is inching towards the concept of ‘Safer Supply’ for drug users supposedly aimed at reducing the harm of the illicit drug trade, however as Canada is experiencing this strategy is a failure as it promotes drug use, particularly among teenager’s hood winked by the ‘Safer’ reference in the strategy – no drugs are safe.
There is pattern developing where governments are blind to the consequences of fashionable strategies when they are just playing into the hands of the drug cartels by promoting ‘Safe’ as a part of the illicit products.
There is little doubt that every drug pusher in the country can leverage off the Government ‘Safer supply’ mantra as a means of encouraging vulnerable young people to experiment.
The Video ‘The invisible Girls’ should be compulsory viewing for every politician in this State to ensure we do not follow any further the Canadian error that costs young people their lives and helps promote illicit drug use.
Madison was just 15 when she first encountered “dillies” — hydromorphone pills meant for safer supply, but readily available on the streets.
“Multiple people walking up the street, down the street, saying ‘dillies, dillies,’ and that’s how you get them,” Madison said, referring to dealers in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside.
Madison says she could get pills for $1.25 each, when purchased directly from someone receiving the drugs through safer supply — a provincial program that provides drug users with prescribed opioids. Madison would typically buy a whole bottle to last a week.
But as her tolerance grew, so did her addiction, leading her to try fentanyl.
“The dillies weren’t hitting me anymore … I tried [fentanyl] and instantly I just melted,” she said.
Kamilah Sword, Madison’s best friend, was just 14 when she died of an overdose on Aug. 20, 2022 after taking a hydromorphone pill dispensed through safer supply.
Madison, along with Kamilah’s father, Gregory Sword, are among the Port Coquitlam, B.C., residents featured in a documentary by journalist Adam Zivo. The film uncovers how safer supply drugs — intended as a harm reduction measure — contribute to harm among youth by being highly accessible, addictive and dangerous.
Through emotional interviews with teens and their families, the film links these drugs to overdose deaths and explores how they can act as a gateway to stronger substances like fentanyl.
‘Not a myth’
Some last names are omitted to respect the victims’ desire for privacy.
Safer supply aims to reduce overdose deaths by providing individuals with substance use disorders access to pharmaceutical-grade alternatives, such as hydromorphone.
But some policy experts, health officials and journalists are concerned these drugs are being diverted onto the streets — particularly hydromorphone, which is often sold under the brand name Dilaudid and nicknamed “dillies.”
Zivo, the film’s director, points out the disinformation surrounding safer supply diversion, highlighting that some drug legalization activists downplay the issue of diversion.
In 2023, B.C.’s then-chief coroner Lisa Lapointe dismissed claims that individuals were collecting their safer supply medications and selling them to youth, thereby creating new opioid dependencies and contributing to overdose deaths. She labeled such claims an “urban myth.”
In the film, Madison describes how teen substance users would occasionally accompany people enrolled in the safer supply program to the pharmacy, where they would fill their prescriptions and then sell the drugs to the teens.
“It’s not a myth, because my best friend died from it,” she says in the film.
Fiona Wilson, deputy chief of the Vancouver Police Department, testified on April 15 to the House of Commons health committee studying Canada’s opioid crisis that about 50 per cent of hydromorphone seizures by police are linked to safer supply.
Deputy Chief of the Vancouver Police Department, Fiona Wilson, testified on April 15 during the House of Commons ‘Opioid Epidemic and Toxic Drug Crisis in Canada’ health committee meeting.
Additionally, Ottawa Police Sergeant Paul Stam previously confirmed to Canadian Affairs that similar reports of diverted safer supply drugs have been observed in Ottawa.
“Hopefully, by giving these victims a platform and bringing their stories to life, the film can impress upon Canadians the urgent need for reform,” Zivo told Canadian Affairs.
‘Creating addicts’
The teens featured in the film share their experiences with the addictive nature of dillies.
“After doing them for like a month, it felt like I needed them everyday,” says Amelie North, one teen featured in the documentary. “I felt like I couldn’t stand being alive without being on dillies.”
Madison explains how tolerance builds quickly. “You just keep doing them until it’s not enough at all.”
Madison started using fentanyl at the age of 12, leading to a near-fatal overdose after just one hit at a SkyTrain station. “It took five Narcan kits to save my life,” she says in the film.
Many of her friends use dillies or have tried fentanyl, she says. She estimates half the students at her school do.
“Government-supplied hydromorphone is a dangerous domino in the cascade of an addict’s downward spiral to ever more risky behaviour,” said Madison’s mother, Beth, to Canadian Affairs.
“The safe drug supply is creating addicts, not helping addicts,” Denise Fenske, North’s mother, told Canadian Affairs.
“I’m not sure when politicians talk about all the beds they have opened up for youth with drug or alcohol problems, where they actually are and how do we access them?”
Sword, Kamilah’s father, expressed his concern in an email to Canadian Affairs. “I want the people [watching the film] to understand how easy this drug is to get for the kids and how many kids it is affecting, the pain it causes the loved ones, [with] no answers or help for them.”
Screenshot: Dr. Matthew Orde reviewing Kamilah Sword’s toxicology report during his interview for the filming of ‘Government Heroin 2: The Invisible Girls’ in March 2024.
Autopsy
Kamilah’s death raises further concerns.
According to Dr. Matthew Orde, a forensic pathologist featured in the film, Kamilah’s toxicology report revealed a mix of depressants and stimulants, including flualprazolam (a benzo), benzoylecgonine (a cocaine byproduct), MDMA and hydromorphone.
Orde criticizes the BC Coroners Service for not following best practices by focusing solely on cardiac arrhythmia caused by cocaine and MDMA, while overlooking the potential role of benzos and hydromorphone.
Orde notes that in complex poly-drug deaths, an autopsy is typically performed to determine the cause more accurately. He says he was shocked that Kamilah’s case did not receive this level of investigation.
B.C. has one of the lowest autopsy rates in Canada.
Zivo told Canadian Affairs he thinks a public inquiry into Kamilah’s case and other youth deaths involving hydromorphone since 2020 is needed to assess if the province is accurately reporting the harms of safer supply.
“That just angers me that our coroners did not do what most of Canada would have done,” Sword told Canadian Affairs.
“It also makes me question why they didn’t do an autopsy, what is our so-called government hiding?”
Surprise, surprise, the State has lost control of juvenile offenders.
The crime Tsunami CAA predicted almost ten years ago is well and truly upon us; what we didn’t expect was that the government’s ineptitude would contribute to fuelling the severity of the tsunami.
A massive spike in criminality by juveniles has made this State arguably the most dangerous in which to live, with the safety and sanctity of our homes being eroded daily by rampaging out-of-control youths. Not to mention the attacks on businesses.
Our safe haven bolt hole has all but disappeared.
The oft-quoted line of ‘you can’t arrest your way out of this problem’ rings very true, and a government that tinkers around the edges in the crime space is unquestionably the cause.
Law enforcement can only do so much, and we know they are trying their hardest, but with limited police resources, inept, ineffective courts, and the failing of so-called professional support services, all come at a considerable expense to the policing of the rest of the community and even more egregious, a huge cost of the failed development of our youth into meaningful contributors to our society, a penalty so severe it fades other sanctions into paltriness.
The latest tinkering with bail laws will have little impact because the primary cause of this imbroglio is the Courts lacking accountability in their role and the poor performance of individual jurists who operate without answerability. The influence of woke ideologies is a significant culprit embraced by gullible jurists.
Just as the government touts its latest reforms to bail, the impact of lifting the age of criminal responsibility is yet to be fully realised.
To aggravate a dire situation, the government has announced closing many of the children’s courts.
That will push out even further the current wait for justice, making truth of the adage ‘Justice delayed is justice denied’. Denying justice hurts victims and perpetrators alike.
When coupled with the age adjustment, the closing of the courts is no more than a cost-saving exercise. A cynic may argue that this has always been the plan. Raise the age of criminal responsibility to reduce court traffic and then shut the courts because they are inefficient – they are inefficient at administering the law, as the crime tsunami attests, and that should be the focus. Courts like any other entity has obligations for service delivery, how does making the courts less accessible improve the delivery of court services?
The combination of these two government actions means we will have more crime as there is no enforceable intervention in criminal behaviour of young children to prevent them from a further life of crime being ingrained in their psyche.
It has not gone unnoticed that all the advocates who promote the age of criminality changes are strong on the emotional rhetoric but near mute on the alternative process for managing out-of-control kids. Perhaps the advocates should talk sternly to the kids on the street to solve the problem. Good luck with that.
There is a lot of noise in the Northern Territory (NT), where the government has recently reversed the lifting of the age of criminal responsibility. Noise from advocates claim that little ten-year-olds will end up in the infamous Don Dale youth centre.
Notably, the rest of the community made the noise to reverse this decision at the Ballot box. It’s funny how, on social issues, the advocates never accept they may be wrong. As remote as the Youth Centre option is, it would be a last resort to protect the community and the child.
Even with the NT crime rate amongst young perpetrators, the courts are the arbiters of punishment, so the chances of a child going to prison are remote.
But back to the crime issue in Victoria because it is at a critical stage.
The solutions, in no particular order, are;
Provide financial incentives for homeowners to improve security – physical barriers, not just CCTV, which record after the fact and are so prolific that they have little preventive value. Criminals, including kids, are inherently lazy, and if entering the house is more complex, they will be discouraged from trying.
Make the Courts and jurists accountable for performance. This does not impinge on the independence of the Judiciary but at least makes their performance effective against reasonable benchmarks.
Introduce a Police Reserve to release operationally competent police from non-operational roles to bolster front-line numbers, allowing for better and more effective proactive policing. Stopping crime before it starts.
Review the role and accountability of the Children’s Commission.
The current Commissioner’s CV exposes extensive and severe conflicts of interest at play to the degree that would make the appointee unable or unwilling to help young people without the influence of an ideological bent.
The silence of the Commissioner in the current crisis speaks volumes.
Liana Buchanan is the Principal Commissioner for Children and Young People
Liana Buchanan commenced as the Principal Commissioner for Children and Young People in April 2016. (Coincidently, not long before the CAA warned of this current crime Tsunami). She also sits as a part-time Commissioner of the Victorian Law Reform Commission.
Liana has a background in oversight and system reform for people experiencing disadvantage, with a strong focus on family violence and sexual assault. Before she was appointed Commissioner, her roles included the Executive Officer of the Federation of Community Legal Centres, where she led the peak body for Victoria’s 50 community legal centres, and the Director of the Office of Correctional Services Review, where she was responsible for monitoring Victoria’s corrections system. Liana has also held legal and policy positions with a social justice focus in a number of agencies, including the Victorian Equal Opportunity Commission, Department of Justice, Office for the Status of Women (SA) and Women’s Legal Service (SA).
It seems Ms Buchaman is only a part-time Commissioner for Children and Young People, and with her career focus on social justice values, this conflict is absolutely counterintuitive to what this role should be about – protecting the young and vulnerable.
Instead of remaining silent, the Commissioner should provide leadership to resolve the problems inflicted on our youth.
It is an apt time for a root and branch reappraisal of the various functions and roles in the non-coal face operatives supposedly working to help police in this war, a reality that is approaching fast.
Police are being sent to fight a war without logistical, legislative or political support, and that is unconscionable, for the Police, victims and youths alike.
Police have been forced to divert even more resources away from protecting us by introducing a new initiative to proactively visit recidivist offenders in a desperate effort to reduce the worst offending.
While the police effort is commendable, as far as that goes, the move highlights the anomalies in the Justice system that police are required to do this. The police effort to manage the 362 recidivists is unlikely to be effective enough to make a huge difference, and although any success is of value, the cost-benefit will become questionable.
Remember that each of these recidivists is already in the Justice system to earn the tag, recidivist.
If the Justice system were doing its job, the Courts would have taken action to ensure the non-reoffending of these children and the risk to the safety of all of us, including the child, is alleviated.
In essence, our justice system is an abject failure.
Of course, everyone in that system will wring their hands and blame somebody else, but somebody must be accountable, or there will be no improvement. And while the Police are focused on the known recidivists, and we hope they have success, there is a new cohort of recidivists coming along to bolster the recidivist numbers as some are removed from the list.
The point is that turning their life around is a mammoth and largely wasted effort by the time a child has become a recidivist, as the crime statistics show.
Three things must occur if we want a solution.
Early intervention -the effort must be made before juveniles reach that problem stage because, for most that do, it is too late and,
Juvenile Sentencing Principles – must be reviewed and,
Courts accountability -The Courts must be held accountable for their failure if a child continues to offend.
Early intervention.
The cancellation of many of the Police proactive programs has contributed substantially to the current crime trends. A formal Police In schools Program instead of the current erratic approach, the regeneration of the Blue Light program so successful in all other States, and the highly successful Operation New Start must be reintroduced.
All of these programs were successful, so VicPol has to suck it up and redirect the energy they apply from ‘why not’ to ‘can do’.
Juvenile Sentencing Principles
The Juvenile sentencing principles are a root cause of the current crime problem and its continued escalation.
The principles make for an interesting read.
Rehabilitation is the principal consideration for sentencing children. Section 362(1) of the Children, Youth and Families Act 2005 (Vic) outlines the considerations that must be taken into account when sentencing a child:
the need to strengthen and preserve the relationship between the child and the child’s family
the desirability of allowing the child to live at home
the desirability of allowing the education, training or employment of the child to continue without interruption or disturbance
the need to minimise the stigma to the child resulting from a court decision
the suitability of the sentence to the child
if appropriate, ensure the child is aware of their need to take responsibility for any action that is against the law
if appropriate, the need to protect the community, or any person, from the violent or other wrongful acts of the child.
Rather than setting young people goals to improve their behaviour with breaches subject to disciplinary action, the whole concept of the sentencing is to create an unachievable nirvana state divorced from reality.
Central to the failure of these principles is the lack of care for the reoffending and, therefore, damage not only to the community but, in some respects, more importantly, the child.
Suppose a child who is a recidivist is stealing cars and driving recklessly. There have been ample instances where, by good luck rather than anything else, young children have avoided death or severe injury in stolen cars. In that case, they are as dangerous to themselves as the community, and for the Courts to not take action to prevent this is irresponsible. Should the unthinkable happen, you can bet the Courts won’t put their hands up for their failure.
These principles need revisiting.
Court accountability
We believe there would be a seismic shift in the management of juvenile offenders if the responsible Jurist were to be held accountable for the consequences of a child’s recidivism.
Jurists have the power to solve many of the problems by adhering to the principle that provides the solution.
‘if appropriate, the need to protect the community, or any person, from the violent or other wrongful acts of the child.’
However, the courts are pressured by the weight of the other principles to allow them to avoid their responsibility to the child and the community. This principle must be the primary one, requiring jurists to consider it their primary function, and then the other principles can be applied.
The current system is broken, and police should not be hampered by the failure of the courts to do their job; instead, they should be delivering the police service to all of us and applying resources to proactive early intervention.
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