By Victoria Stone-Meadows
MORE police recruits and tougher laws have been announced by the State Government to target youth crime, despite crime committed by offenders less than 18 years of age declining in frequency.
On Monday 5 December, Premier Daniel Andrews announced a number of new criminal justice directions to curb youth offending, which is considered particularly high in the south-east area.
These new laws and penalties include an increase to the maximum period of detention that can be imposed by the Children’s Court, a new offence for adults who lure young people to commit crimes for them, a new Youth Control Order (YCO) to give the Children’s Court the power to issue a more intensive and targeted supervision sentence for young offenders, and many more.
The announcement of the new youth crime targeting systems comes on the back of the government plans to recruit 2729 new police cadets over the next four years.
At the announcement on 4 December Police Chief Commissioner Graham Ashton specifically noted that police numbers had been stretched in the south east suburbs due to youth crime.
“Young people feel shut out of society, they are feeling frustrated and getting into crime and forming the groups and gangs out there committing crimes,” he said.
“Young people are feeling disconnected and we need to work in that issue by providing accountable law enforcement, and work on prevention and turn these young people around.”
“Victoria Police has to focus on that and this announcement allows us to maintain a commitment to that.”
Police Minister Lisa Neville specifically flagged growth corridors in the state as areas needing more police and youth workers to tackle youth crime.
The government has also announced $10 million worth of Youth Crime Prevention grants to specifically target and prevent youth offending.
“We will be funding 42 police youth recourse works across the state to work with youth at both ends; working with youth offenders and working on prevention,” she said.
“Youth offending overall is down but we have this group offending at extraordinary rates and committing crimes and none of the traditional interventions have worked.”
“We are and have been talking to police and other youth workers about what we need to do to turn this around because they are causing too much harm, it is unacceptable and will not continue.”
However, while youth offending has remained steady across the state in the period from July 2015 to June 2016 with a one per cent increase in the number of offenders aged 10 to 17, in Casey, that statistic has fallen.
According to the Crime Statistics Agency of Victoria, total crime incidents committed by people aged 10 to 17 years in the City of Casey have dropped.
In the period from July 2015 to June 2016, the incidents of youth crime in Casey has fallen 15.5 percent across all but one crime categories compared to the same period in 2014 to 2015.
The only crime category where youth offending has increased in Casey is Justice Procedures offences such as breaches of court orders.
At a council meeting on Tuesday 6 December, Casey Mayor Sam Aziz proposed the council contact the Victoria Police Command to request an allocation of new officers to the area.
Mayor Sam Aziz said he was happy that the State Government had “finally come to the party“ after the council had lobbied under a five-plank community safety plan – including extra police.
The next wave of frontline police officers is expected to hit the streets of Casey in April next year.
