By Kieran Rooney, Annika Smethurst and Wendy Tuohy
Bail could be revoked more easily, aggravated burglaries treated more harshly and ankle monitors fast-tracked for repeat offenders as Victoria plans new measures to crack down on youth crime.
Attorney-General Jaclyn Symes on Wednesday said nothing was off the table as the government met with police, legal advocates and community groups to respond to public concerns about crimes committed by a group of young repeat offenders.
Four police and government sources, speaking anonymously to detail the internal discussions, said the government would over the next fortnight consider new measures to present to cabinet to stem community outrage before parliament resumes.
These would be on top of Victoria’s first piece of stand-alone youth justice legislation, a 1000-page bill that is before parliament. That will raise the age of criminal responsibility to 12, boost the capacity of the children’s court and provide youth supervision orders as options outside sending children into custody.
The sources acknowledged more would have to be done as high-profile cases go before the courts and teens allegedly repeatedly flout court orders.
But Victorian Commissioner for Children and Young People Liana Buchanan warned against rolling out new justice measures based on an emotional response to recent crimes.
“There is community concern about youth offending … and none of us should ignore that,” Buchanan said.
“But at same time, we need to make sure we don’t respond to serious incidents of offending, and community concern, with simplistic, populist responses that won’t work. We cannot use our emotional response to drive policy.”
The release of alleged offenders on bail has been thrust back into the spotlight after a children’s court heard a 17-year-old charged over a Burwood car crash that killed aspiring doctor William Taylor had allegedly breached his bail within 48 hours after complaining the conditions were too harsh.
Among the options believed to be favoured by law enforcement advocates is upgrading the offence of aggravated burglary from being viewed as a property crime to a crime against the person. Property crimes do not attract the same sort of penalties and are not treated as seriously by courts when considering bail.
Attorney-General Jaclyn Symes is meeting this week with police, legal advocates and community groups.Credit: AAP
Symes said she would also investigate whether courts and police should revoke bail more often for young offenders who continued to commit crimes or breach conditions. Changes such as stricter bail supervision or electronic monitoring could be delivered by the end of the year.
She said bail often benefited community safety by keeping children out of the justice system and reducing their risk of reoffending – but this only worked if the rules were followed.
“If we are seeing repeat offenders, depending on the brief [of evidence, and] depending on what they’re doing, if they’re committing more offences, I want to see more discussion and more effort put into revocation of bail,” Symes said.
“The revocation space is what I want to talk to people about. When a child commits an offence while on bail, it is incumbent upon the Director of Public Prosecutions or the police to bring a revocation application.”
Symes said the tests for providing bail were clear, but there was less guidance outlining when revocation was appropriate. She wanted to test possible changes with police and the courts.
“We know that the community is extremely concerned about youth crime,” she said. “A lot of our programs and diversionary efforts, police efforts, go a long way to diverting many young people away from the justice system, and a lot of those programs are very, very successful.
“However, we do have a cohort of young offenders, repeat offenders, that are causing a lot of damage, a lot of concern, and we know that there’s community fear, and we want to send a very strong message that the government is focused on this.”
Victoria Police Assistant Commissioner Glenn Weir said he expected bail laws to be on the agenda at a police meeting with the government on Thursday.
Victoria Police Assistant Commissioner Glenn Weir says officers can get frustrated by the courts’ decisions.Credit: Chris Hopkins
“I don’t know for sure, but I’d like to be having a bet on Sportsbet that they would,” he said.
Weir said he “absolutely” shared the frustrations of frontline police about having to continually arrest recidivist youth offenders.
“I’ve been a frontline policeman my whole life. And we do, from time to time, get frustrated with decisions that are made, or not made, by the courts,” he said.
“But the courts are independent ... the courts make decisions based on the evidence and they make decisions against the settings of legislation.”
Liana Buchanan, the Victorian Children’s Commissioner.Credit: Justin McManus
Shadow attorney-general Michael O’Brien said a discussion wasn’t good enough.
“[The government] should apologise to Victorians and fix it now,” he said. “They should reinstate the offence of breaching bail conditions. They should reinstate tougher tests of serious repeat offenders.”
William Taylor was killed in the Burwood crash.
O’Brien said the Burwood case highlighted the issue of dealing with young offenders on bail.
“It does show there should be consequences for breaching bail,” he said. “It used to be an offence. Labor decriminalised it in March. They got it wrong. They need to get it right.”
Buchanan said remanding child offenders who were being brought into crime by older peers would not act as a deterrent.
“[Being refused bail] would be a badge of honour, and serve as no disincentive,” she said. “But it will put them into contact with other young people who have offended, and it will entrench their offending. It doesn’t help increase community safety.”
Buchanan said calls for a crackdown on young offenders were an age-old response.
“That’s understandable. Because I can only imagine if you were a family member of the young man who was killed last week [in the alleged hit-run in Burwood],” she said.
“We are dealing with awful circumstances, but ... we have to look at what will work because only that will make the community safer. Unfortunately, a tougher approach that is overly simplistic will not have that effect.”
With Broede Carmody, Lachlan Abbott
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