Amid community fear and anger, the Allan government says it will ‘jolt the system’ with sweeping reforms
As the bells rang to signal the close of sitting day in Victoria’s parliament last week, an MP rose to his feet to plead with the Labor government to do more to combat crime in the state. “Speaker, every Victorian has the right to feel and be safe in their homes, their streets, their workplaces and their neighbourhoods,” Anthony Cianflone said.
“My constituents continue to welcome stronger criminal justice and bail reforms; a further crackdown on serious, dangerous, violent and repeat offenders; ongoing support to help Victoria police increase its powers, resources, presence and patrols across the community.”
The plea was not unique. For weeks now, much of the parliamentary debate has been consumed by the so-called “youth crime crisis” plaguing Victoria.
But it was rare coming from a Labor MP – highlighting the growing rift within the party over how to address the issue.
Cianflone, who represents the marginal seat of Pascoe Vale in Melbourne’s inner north, acknowledged that the crime rate in his electorate is actually lower than the state average. Yet, despite this, there is a perception crime is growing out of control.
Each morning, Victorians wake to headlines about car thefts, home invasions and high-speed chases, many involving young offenders.
Social media influencers such as Rebecca Judd have also regularly spoken out about the issue, with the former TV presenter recently urging her 750,000 followers to vote the premier, Jacinta Allan, “out at the next election”.
“She clearly cares more about not upsetting violent offenders than innocent Victorians,” Judd posted last month, in response to the launch of a “Bring on Bail Reform” petition by FM radio hosts Fifi, Fev and Nick. The petition has since garnered more than 100,000 signatures. Another petition has also been launched by News Corp’s Herald Sun, as part of its “Suburbs Under Siege” campaign.
“Our state is facing a crime crisis that has never happened anywhere in this country at this level. We read about it in the news each and every day. We see it on our streets,” the opposition leader, Brad Battin, said in a grievance debate he initiated in parliament in February.
The issue has rattled the government, which had wound back the state’s “discriminatory” bail laws in 2023 after an inquest into the death of Veronica Nelson, an Aboriginal woman who died in custody after being remanded for shoplifting.
Now, it is moving to tighten the laws once more. Cabinet met on Tuesday to hash out reforms, with the Allan Labor government announcing on Wednesday that it would create the “toughest bail laws in Australia to prevent reoffending and keep Victorians safe”. The government’s “tough bail bill” will be introduced into parliament next week, promising “sweeping changes” that will target serious repeat reoffenders and remove the principle of remand as a “last resort” for accused youth.
“Our tough bail laws will jolt the system – putting community safety above all, creating the toughest bail laws ever and ensuring bail rules are respected,” Allan said.
But is Victoria truly in a “crime crisis”?
Tyler Cawthray, an assistant professor of criminology and criminal justice at Bond University, has charted the similar narrative of a crime crisis engulfing Queensland, where the Liberal National party won government in October after campaigning on an “adult time for adult crime” policy.
Cawthray said across New South Wales, Queensland and Victoria, youth crime has generally decreased over the last decade, including during Covid.
Victoria has one of the lowest rates of youth crime in the country, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics data, with only the Australian Capital Territory and South Australia having a rate below it.
Just 13% of all crime across Victoria was the result of youth offending in 2023-24, which was consistent with the previous year, when it was 12%.
However, data from the Victorian Crime Statistics Agency (CSA) also shows the number of alleged youth offender incidents has seen a sharp rise, growing by 16.9% year on year, with a total of 23,810 in the year to September 2024.
graph showing alleged offender incidents by youths. Both males and females are represented. The female line grows steadily from 2015 peaking at 6,000 in 2024 with a dip to near 0 during Covid. The male line starts at 14,000 in 2015 and is at 18,000 in 2024, with a similar dip during Covid but only to about 12,000.graph showing the rates of alleged incidents per 100,000 head of population. for males in 2024 it is slightly above 5,000; for females in 2024 it is just below 2,000.
This has largely been driven by young men aged 14 to 17, who made up 15,793 of these alleged offender incidents. Meanwhile, offending by boys aged 10, 11 and 12 has generally been trending downwards, which has given the government confidence to raise the age of criminality responsibility to 12.
Police and the government insist the number of youths committing crimes has not increased. They say there are about 300 repeat youth offenders, with an even smaller group of about 25 who are committing almost a quarter of alleged offending.
Reforms to the youth justice system by the Allan government in August last year were designed with these offenders in mind, including the appointment of a dedicated magistrate and a trial of electronic monitoring for 50 offenders.
On Wednesday, the government said its new bill “again squarely target[s] the risks of these younger serious offenders”.
“Males in their mid-to-late teens – both adults and youths – make up the most alleged aggravated burglary offenders by far, with 64% under the age of 20,” it said.
The proposed laws will impose harsher bail tests on serious, high-risk offences and create the “toughest bail test in the country” for repeat offenders of the worst crimes.
Cawthray said rehabilitation and restorative justice programs were generally more effective in the long term than locking up young offenders, but governments often shy away from these approaches because they do not address public safety concerns immediately.
He said on the whole, there has been an uptick in crime after Covid.
“In Victoria, between 2023 and 2024, there was a further increase in crime, but this trend is seen across most cohorts, not just among young people,” Cawthray said.
“And when factoring in population growth, the overall crime rate is still lower than it was in 2016.”
The CSA said the recorded number of total criminal offences in the year to September 2024 was 578,762 – a 13.4% increase on the previous year. But accounting for population growth, the rate of recorded offences per 100,000 people, 8,305.8, is still below the 8,797.7 recorded in 2016.
bar graph showing recorded crimes in Victoria on a 10-year trend. The latest year is above 500,000 incidents.line graph showing rates of criminal offending per 100,000 people in Victoria. It has been on a rise since Covid to nearly 8,500 offences per 100,000 people in the most recent year.
The CSA said the number of property and deception offences increased the most in the last 12 months, up 19.2%, while family violence incidents increased by 12.5% – and are now at the highest levels ever in Victoria.
The number of aggravated home invasions also increased by 24% over the same period.
New data for 2024 will be released by the CSA next week.
There is no doubt crime has had devastating consequences. In July, there was an outpouring of grief and anger in Melbourne after 28-year-old William Taylor was killed when a stolen Jeep, allegedly driven at high speed by a 17-year-old boy, collided with his car in Burwood.
Families who have been victims of aggravated burglaries have also been left traumatised and the community is growing increasingly angry.
Cawthray said the sense of crisis was not solely caused by crime rates but by increased community awareness driven by news reports, social media and the “surging private use” of security devices such as cameras and video doorbells.
“Crimes may have occurred before, but now they are being reported more frequently,” Cawthray said.
“A break-in attempt that may have gone unnoticed and unreported years ago is now recorded by a doorbell camera.”
In February, just days out from a byelection in Werribee, the premier announced a hasty review of the state’s bail laws and last week conceded they needed to be tightened.
“What is clear to me is that our current settings need to be changed and also don’t align with community expectations,” Allan said.
On Tuesday, the Herald Sun revealed the police chief commissioner, Shane Patton, also had a “seven-point plan” to reform the state’s bail laws, just two weeks before he resigned following a bruising vote of no confidence.
Prior to the government’s unveiling of its new suite of reforms, a member of Labor’s right told the Guardian their faction was “more pragmatic” about the issue.
“Among the right there’s a view we have got to get on top of this before it gets on top of us, but it appears there is no urgency in the left. They appear philosophically opposed to being tough on crime; it juts against their core values,” the MP said.
However, those on the party’s left disputed this.
“Everyone wants a quick fix because the flare-up of fear in the community can quickly turn to rage. But if only there was a magical way to fix it,” another MP said.
“These issues are complex, they’re nuanced and we risk doing more harm than good if we have a kneejerk reaction.”
Joel McGregor, a criminology expert at Swinburne University, agreed. He said legislative changes aimed at targeting the “small minority of repeat offenders” would have negative consequences for young people who are not already involved in the criminal justice system.
“When you shine the spotlight on them and start targeting specific offences committed by young people, you’re likely to see more arrests,” McGregor said.
“Then, if you put them in custody, hit them with harsher penalties, you’re only deepening disadvantage without addressing the root causes of why they’re committing crimes in the first place.”
He said the debate was “cyclical” in nature, always returning to the surface during elections.
“It can be a quick win for politicians to be tough on crime, but unfortunately the consequences can be lifelong.”