Child commissioners have condemned the new bail laws in Victoria, deriding them as costly changes that will only make the "community less safe".
The new laws passed parliament on Thursday night and have seen Indigenous, legal, and human rights groups argue will needlessly incarcerate away more people - particularly Indigenous women and children experiencing poverty, family violence and mental illness.
Premier Jacinta Allan has defended the changes, which she says came about listening to the community but does concede more people will be remanded as a result.
"We needed to bring about a jolt to the system," she told reporters. "We are seeing too much of a pattern of behaviour."
Changes include scrapping the principle of remand only as a "last resort" for accused youth offenders. In its place, community safety will become the "overarching principle" for magistrates and judges when deciding on bail applications for children and adults.
It will also reintroduce "committing an indictable offence while on bail" and another offence, "breaching bail conditions". Both will add an extra three months of imprisonment to any other sentence already being served.
Commissioner for Aboriginal Children and Young People, Meena Singh, said she was concerned about the number of children who will be incarcerated due to "harsh 'second strike' laws if they are on bail and commit even a minor further offence such as a shop theft or possession of drugs".
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Crime statistics released on Thursday revealed a 13.2 per cent increase in the crime rate - the highest level since 2016. Offences committed by children aged 10-17 at the highest rate since electronic records began in 1993.
However, the government says this is driven by repeat offenders, with the number of unique youth offenders falling by three per cent, with the number of repeat offenders increasing by 4.9 per cent.
Commissioner for Children and Young People, Liana Buchanan, said it was "clear" the new laws would capture more "vulnerable" children than just the small group of young offenders highlighted in the crime data.
"It is also well-established that bringing more children into custody entrenches patterns of offending in those young people and ultimately makes the community less safe," she said.
The Commission's 2023-24 report highlighted a 503 per cent increase in the number of episodes because of isolation in youth detention despite a drop in the overall number of children and young people in detention.
Commissioner Singh said, despite the best efforts of staff, places of detention were not the place for rehabilitation. Instead, time spent behind bars only exacerbates the likelihood of recidivism.
"Being placed in custody represents a break in connection to important rehabilitative responses such as links to family and community, culture, education and other pro-social activities," she said.
National Child Commissioner, Anne Hollonds, said "most of the crime currently involving repeat child offenders" was from those who became involved with the criminal justice system at a young age and who had "unmet needs such as disabilities, health and learning problems, and trauma".
Arguing many of these children have "unmet needs such as disabilities, health and learning problems, and trauma," she noted rather than rehabilitate them, locking them up costs the taxpayer $1.3 million per annum and didn't make "our community safer".
After Queensland and the NT, Victoria was the "latest jurisdiction to respond to youth crime in a reactive way," Commissioner Hollonds said.
"The NSW and South Australian governments are also in the process of implementing discredited punitive measures, moving in the opposite direction to that of other developed countries," she argued.
"Governments across the country are looking for a quick political fix rather than acting on evidence from experts."
The relaxing of bail laws in 2024 came after campaigning by the family of Veronica Nelson. The Gunditjmara, Dja Dja Wurrung, Wiradjuri, and Yorta Yorta woman died in custody in 2020 with the then-bail laws described by Coroner Simon McGregor as an "unmitigated disaster" which discriminated against Indigenous people and women.
Sections of the media, as well as the police union and social media influencers have led calls for change, and Commissioner Singh said Victorians deserved to feel safe, arguing, "We can all agree that the current approach is not effective".
"But solutions should be driven by the evidence of what works," she said.
Commissioner Buchanan added: "Instead of sweeping laws to toughen bail, further investment is needed to strengthen assessments, interventions and supports that tackle the drivers of each child's offending and effectively support prevention, early intervention and rehabilitation."
