Case Explained: Experts dismayed as Victorian children set to be tr… – Legal Perspective

Youth justice advocates have expressed outrage over the Victorian Government’s decision to approve new laws which could see children as young as 14 face life in prison for certain offences.

Under the proposal, approved by Victoria’s cabinet on Tuesday evening amid growing political and public pressure over rising crime rates, children charged with offences such as aggravated home invasion, serious or repeat aggravated burglary and armed robbery, intentionally or recklessly causing injury in circumstances of gross violence, and carjacking will be tried and sentenced in adult courts.

Currently, any single offence in the Children’s Court carries a maximum penalty of three years’ imprisonment. In adult courts, intentionally causing serious injury through gross violence carries a maximum of 20 years, while aggravated home invasion can lead to up to 25 years behind bars.

Penalties for aggravated home invasion and carjacking will be lifted from 25 years to life imprisonment under the proposed legislation.

Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service (VALS) CEO, Nerita Waight, condemned the move, noting the sentencing was equivalent to that of murder.

She highlighted the irony the announcement came on the day members of the First Peoples’ Assembly were signing Treaty, arguing Premier Jacinta Allan “wants to sign kids’ lives away who make a mistake”.

“Shame on this government, shame on the Premier and shame on this cabinet for allowing your leader to push this agenda on our kids,” Ms Waight said.

“Victoria is a cruel and unforgiving state where children cannot make a mistake. Punishing trauma is not the answer.”

The proposed legislation will require amendments to the Crimes Act, the Children, Youth and Families Act, and the Youth Justice Act. It appears to echo Queensland Premier David Crisafulli’s controversial “Adult Crime, Adult Time” laws, which have drawn widespread criticism from advocates and legal experts.

Similarly, the Victorian Government has adopted the slogan “Adult crime for violent crime”.

“We want the courts to treat these violent children like adults, so jail is more likely and sentences are longer,” Ms Allan said. “Adult time for violent crime will mean more violent youth offenders going to jail, facing serious consequences.”

In response, Ms Waight said Victoria needs a leader who “understands what policy and programmatic interventions address the underlying causes of offending behaviour”.

“Youth Justice centres are already overwhelmed, conditions will continue to deteriorate, and it is only a matter of time until we are mourning the loss of a child at the hands of the state,” she said.

While rehabilitation is the central focus of the Children’s Court – with experts long warning that early exposure to incarceration increases the likelihood of lifelong offending – adult courts place greater emphasis on community safety and the impact on victims.

Nearly two-thirds of young people sentenced for serious offences in the Children’s Court are diverted away from the prison system. In contrast, 97 per cent of people sentenced for aggravated home invasion or carjacking in adult courts are imprisoned, according to government statistics.

Associate Legal Director of the Human Rights Law Centre, Monique Hurley, said the Victorian Government had condemned children to “irreversible harm and an incredibly bleak future behind bars”.

“Children deserve care, not cages and adult prison sentences,” she said, describing the mirroring of the Crisafulli government’s policies as an “alarming race to the bottom”.

Greens Justice Spokesperson Katherine Copsey agreed, arguing the state government has reverted to importing “failed policies” from interstate conservative governments.

“If Labor was serious about keeping communities safe, they’d invest in what actually works – prevention, housing and mental health, but these are all the things that Labor continues to cut. This isn’t fixing the problem, frankly it’s making it worse,” she said.

Vicki Mau, Executive Director of children’s service 54 reasons, said the proposal is “bitterly disappointing” She argued any claim that locking up children makes the community safer is a “smokescreen”.

“We understand the genuine concerns about community safety, everyone deserves to feel safe and be safe in their homes and neighbourhoods, including children and young people themselves,” Ms Mau said.

“However, while locking a child away might feel like action, it doesn’t actually fix the problem. It just delays it, making it likely to reappear another day.”

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Last year, Victoria raised the age of criminal responsibility to 12 but abandoned plans to lift it further to 14, a move initially supported by former Premier Daniel Andrews.

The Government has faced growing pressure from police and the media to address rising crime, which has reached decade-high levels. Recent crime data shows children aged 17 and under were responsible for 60 per cent of robberies and nearly half of all aggravated burglaries.

However, there has also been criticism from legal and youth experts on the push to criminalise children instead of diverting them to evidence-based rehabilitation programs.

Uncle Lenny Clarke, the founder of Shara Clarke Aboriginal Restorative Justice Services, said the government’s decision is a “deeply troubling step backward that risks causing more harm than good”.

He said his service worked with children who have been “failed by broken systems of care, education, housing, and protection,” arguing they are not “irredeemable offenders,” but rather kids – many of them Aboriginal – who are “carrying trauma, poverty, and pain that they did not create”.

“We accept – as all Victorians do – that public safety is paramount. Every family deserves to feel safe in their home and on their streets,” he said.

“But we cannot build safety by abandoning our children. Putting a 14-year-old in an adult prison does not protect the community – it creates a cycle of trauma, violence, and reoffending that will haunt us for decades.”

VALS chair, Associate Professor Crystal McKinnon, said it’s been a ” year of hasty, justice-related reforms, and this government is giving no time to see whether their policy responses actually work”.

“They simply keep compounding more punitive measures in the hope that it will make a difference, but the evidence is very clear,” she said. “We have had ample inquiries into youth justice and child protection to know that locking children up is not the answer.”