A focus on youth crime and punitive responses ahead of the Victorian election shows a lack of "leadership and accountability", legal advocates say.
Both major parties, as well as far-right party One Nation — which polling suggests could hold the balance of power in Victoria's upper house — have pushed tough-on-crime policies ahead of November's election, which the Coalition is on track to win.
A series of high-profile tragedies, including the fatal bashing of grocer Van Viet Truong in Sunshine in August, has sharpened the focus on youth crime. Meanwhile, Labor's $40 million Youth Crime Prevention Program was found not to have reduced offending, according to the Victorian Auditor-General.
"Only a Jess Wilson-led government will recruit 3,000 more police, fix our broken justice system and offer youth offenders an effective off-ramp out a life of crime," shadow youth justice minister Renee Heath said last month.
The National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Legal Services (NATSILS) said it was alarming political parties, particularly conservative parties, were escalating their rhetoric around youth crime.
The organisation argued parties were seeking to "influence further punitive approaches to youth justice through a swathe of dehumanising media coverage politicising our children and young people".
The recently concluded Senate inquiry into youth justice stated: "Current media coverage suggests that crime by children and young people in Australia is on the rise. However, other statistics show a decrease in youth crime, suggesting there is no 'youth justice crisis' in Australia."
Legal, human rights and Indigenous groups have long called for systemic reform, arguing punitive punishments fail children and families while making communities less safe.
NATSILS executive director, Nick Espie, said those who believe imprisoning children and young people would make communities safer were "resigned to a cowardly approach to youth justice".
He argued the proposed approach "lacks the leadership and accountability to accept that traumatising children will make them more likely to fall into a cycle of crime, ultimately making communities less safe".
While concerns about youth crime are widespread, views differ on how best to address it. Mr Espie said Victoria did not need "more policing or more jails," arguing the "evidence makes it clear this does not make communities safe".
"All state and territory governments should be investing in approaches that prevent children from coming into contact with the so-called justice system in the first place," he said.
"As a critical step in fixing the youth justice crisis, we need national minimum standards for the treatment of children in the youth justice system, which supports arrest, detention or imprisonment of a child being used only as a measure of last resort and for the shortest appropriate period of time."
The Victorian Government raised the age of criminal responsibility to 12 during the current electoral cycle but reneged on a commitment to eventually raise it to 14. It also introduced a series of bail reforms and "adult time for crime" laws following criticism over crime rates, drawing strong opposition from legal and human rights groups.
