Victorian government to introduce new youth justice bill

The Victorian government is set to introduce its youth justice bill on the back of a rise in youth crime rates in the state.

Transcript

00:00This new youth justice bill will feature a range of measures.

00:06This includes raising the age of criminal responsibility from 10 to 12.

00:11Now Victoria will be Australia's first state to do this.

00:15As the government says it's really keen to see younger children stay out of the criminal

00:20justice system.

00:21Although children aged 10 and 11 will still be able to be collected by police and taken

00:27to a safe space until someone's able to take care of them if they're deemed to be a risk

00:32to themselves or to others.

00:35Now ankle bracelets or electronic monitoring will also be rolled out as part of this bill.

00:41This will see 50 youth offenders trialled with electronic bracelets over two years in

00:47a bid to curb and crack down on bail breaches.

00:50There'll also be an increased focus on warnings and cautions with trials in NSW showing that

00:58a focus on this and this early intervention is proving effective in deterring young people

01:03from re-offending and having to go to court.

01:06There'll also be a focus and a crackdown on older people and closing loopholes which essentially

01:12allows them to recruit young people to do their dirty work for them.

01:17And there'll also be a victim register rollout.

01:21Now this will allow people who are victims of youth crime to receive more relevant updates

01:27and also have their say about how it's impacted them which will inform parole conditions.

01:33Here's a little bit of what Premier Jacinta Allen had to say about this bill.

01:38This is about delivering a youth justice system that keeps Victorians safe and yes that does

01:44mean holding young offenders to account while also seeing those who are less likely to continue

01:51to re-offend, keeping those kids out of the criminal justice system, stopping them from

01:56becoming hardened adult offenders is going to be a key feature of this bill.

02:02Now this bill has been rolled out following a spate of crime across Victoria involving

02:07young people and the government says it hopes that these measures will go a long way to

02:12helping address some of those problems.