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.
There needs to be a Community victim support group to create awareness of the impacts on society of youth crime and to represent all victims and secondary victims of home invasions and youth crime. It must be strictly apolitical so it cannot be used for political agendas nor be dependent on funding from government. It is not hard to get victim stories about the impacts and hammer politicians and media and wider community until effective action is taken. We must not allow this to become normal in our society.
We endorse the behaviour we walk past. For evil to reign it only takes good people to do nothing…….Unfortunately “youth crime” in its numerous forms has reached a level where John and Mary Citizen now too often feel deeply anxious about their own safety and security – and with good reason. In some areas citizens have been driven to obtain or develop defensive, and sometimes offensive, equipment with a view to protecting themselves. The current threat posed by “youth crime” is such that victim-citizens will firstly retreat to safety rather than attempt to influence offenders to behave appropriately. It has already become normal in our society. Recent changes to the bail laws will prove meaningless. They are still inadequate. The “efficiency” of the Justice system in dealing with alleged offenders, of all ages, is a disgrace. [Justice delayed is justice denied]. Judicial practices need to demonstrate that the era of “doing nothing” is over – and that demonstration requires genuinely tough penalties that will not be laughed at by offenders, and that will with certainty protect the community.