The Victorian Premier has seemingly softened her stance on the Labor government's promise to raise the age of criminal responsibility to 14, in line with international best practice and medical evidence.

On Sunday, Premier Jacinta Allan, who has met with members close to the Victorian Police - who do not support raising the age above 12 - during Parliament's winter break, was asked multiple times about the commitment, first promised by former Premier Daniel Andrews and promoted as recently as June by Youth Justice Minister Enver Erdogan.

She said in the wake of significant media coverage around youth crime her government needed to take "further strengthened action" to tackle serious repeat offenders.

The Premier also refused multiple times to commit to keeping the government's promise to raise the age to 14, as committed to by former premier Daniel Andrews, before a cabinet meeting expected to discuss the issue on Monday.

"The government has already announced its pathway to raising the minimum age of criminal responsibility and the first step was raising it to 12, which is in the youth justice bill before parliament," she said, The Age reports.

"We know that building on the youth justice bill that's in the parliament we need to take additional measures. Now I am not going to pre-empt that conversation with colleagues, but we know we need to do more."

The premier refused to be drawn into questions about their commitment to raising the age above 12, but didn't offer any definitive support, despite the government's previous promises.

The Labor government has committed to raising the age to 12 - via the Youth Justice Bill - initially scheduled to be this year but now not likely until 2025, and then to 14 by 2027, with limited carve outs for serious offences and subject to an "alternative service model".

The long-awaited bill has passed the lower house and is likely to be debated in the upper house this week. It has been campaigned for years by human rights and Indigenous groups who argue it is the bare minimum the state can do.

While there will be no carve outs for anyone under 12 years-of-age, the bill will see electronic monitoring for up to 50 juvenile offenders on bail - criticised by Indigenous groups has a failed experiment and waste of money -

As it stands, children as young as 10 can be charged and incarcerated, despite overwhelming evidence this produces little rehabilitative effects whilst largely exacerbating recidivism and trauma.

According to the latest Closing the Gap data, Victoria has the second lowest rate of Indigenous incarceration for 10-17-year-olds in the country. However, it is still 9.6 times the incarceration rate to that of non-Indigenous children and young people.

The Victorian opposition do not support raising the age to 12, arguing it sends the wrong message, doesn't protect the community, and is only being done to reduce the youth crime statistics.

Experts say youth crime in Victoria is largely perpetrated by a small number of repeat offenders rather than entailing a "crime wave" by many offenders, as claimed by some media commentators and the Victorian Opposition.

Much of the media coverage of the issue has involved offences by 16 and 17-year-olds who would not be affected by raising the age to 14. Data indicates a rise in crime has occurred in the 14-17 age bracket, not in the 10-13 demographic.

Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service (VALS) chief executive Nerita Waight has told National Indigenous Times members of the Victorian Police had been "fear mongering" on youth crime as part of their opposition to raising the age, something she said didn't do anything to make the community safer.

"If they're committed to making communities stronger and safer, scaring people is not the way to go," Ms Waight said last month.

"It's all too regular to see stories in the media attributed to anonymous police sources, but you never hear of any police being disciplined for actions like that."

Regarding Premier Allan's comments on Sunday, Ms Waight told The Age the organisation still expected the government to keep their promise.

"The Victorian government has repeatedly promised to raise the minimum age of criminal responsibility to 14 years old by 2027. Experts from Aboriginal, legal, and medical organisations all agree that the minimum age should be at least 14 years old," she said.

Many in the community have been critical of some of the government's decisions in recent months, despite their support for the historic and Australian-first Treaty negotiations—strongly promoted by First Peoples' Minister Natalie Hutchins.

Earlier this year, the government failed to adopt the majority of the commission's recommendations in their interim report, whislt they have also faced criticism for a "backflip" on youth bail laws, which VALS said reneged on its promise to remove reverse onus bail provisions for young people.