- Published:
- Tuesday 18 June 2024 at 11:30 pm
Children deserve every opportunity to live their best lives.
Our work with children and young people has demonstrated that focusing on diversion and support are the best ways to prevent and address offending and harm.
It is why we welcome reforms in the Youth Justice Bill 2024 (Vic) introduced into Victorian Parliament.
‘We commend the Victorian Government for the introduction of many evidence-based reforms through these laws, in the face of a sustained fear campaign on youth crime,’ said Executive Director Dan Nicholson from the Criminal Law team.
The Bill has a strong focus on caution and diversion, reflecting the significant progress that has already been made by police, policymakers, the courts and others to divert as many children as possible away from the youth justice system.
‘Many children we work with have experienced significant disadvantage, harm and violence. Many will have had some interaction with child protection and their needs can be complex,' said Dan.
'We support legislative changes that come from a strong evidence base.
‘Through our work, we have seen how children are able to turn their lives around when they are given appropriate supports and the opportunity to thrive.
'Custody and punitive responses must always be the last resort.’
The Bill gives effect to the government commitment to raise the age of criminal responsibility to 12.
This is welcome, but we maintain our call for the immediate raising of the age of criminal responsibility to 14 as the most effective way to support young children to live happily and healthily with strong connections to their families and community.
We do not support new powers for police as part of these changes.
‘We continue to see how police acting under existing laws can over criminalise First Nations kids, children from diverse cultural backgrounds, young people with child protection involvement.’
We look forward to analysing the Bill in detail and contributing our practice experience working with children every day across Victoria to this important reform.
More information
Read our response to the government’s decision not to proceed with important bail changes for children.
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