Victoria to Spend Millions on More Prison Beds for Unconvicted Youths

Ahead of its 20 May Budget for 2025/26, the Victorian Labor government last week announced it’s investing an extra $727 million on new prison beds because premier Jacinta Allan is well aware that current trends in governing Australian states and territories require governments to be seen to be cracking down on crime, and this is especially so, in terms of children.

Unlike other jurisdictions, however, Victoria, in its recent pump-up-the-prison-numbers reforms hasn’t solely reserved this extra carceral attention for kids, as Allan’s splash out on correctional centre renovations envisages new cells for both kids and adults, which, just like her recent bail reforms, foresees the potential for more unconvicted bodies on the inside, regardless of age.

So, during a cost-of-living crisis, Victoria has located close to three-quarters of a billion dollars to fund the warehousing of 1,000 more adults in correctional facilities, and an 88 additional beds for kids in the state’s child prisons. And while the number of extra beds for 12- to 17-years-olds is much less than that for adults, an average day over 2023/24 only saw 93 kids in Victorian detention.

Allan announced the expansion plans on a visit to the new Western Plains Correctional Centre, which is about to commence incarcerating people, and the Victorian premier underscored that the need for the extra beds is all about the state’s strict new bail regime that took effect in March, which means more unconvicted and unsentenced inmates being made to stew inside whist awaiting their trial.

In a 13 May statement the Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service outlined that its youth legal practice, Balit Ngulu, already reports a 300 percent increase in youths being refused bail and held on remand since June 2024, and while First Nations children make up 19 percent of child inmates in Victorian gaols, they only account for 2.1 percent of the overall population in the 12 to 17 age bracket.

Official figures hide racial bias

The Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service (VALS) outlines that the Allan government’s bail crackdown is going to “be a costly and dangerous mistake for Aboriginal people”, as not only are First Nations youths overrepresented in the state’s kiddie gaols, but Indigenous adults account for 13 percent of the state’s adult prisoners, yet they only make up 1.2 percent of the state’s overall population.

“Prisons are not the answer to community safety,” said VALS chief executive Nerita Waight in a press release last week. “Investment in mental health, family violence, housing, community-based diversion programs alongside legal assistance is the only way to address the underlying causes of offending behaviour.”

“The government is taking the Victorian public as fools, even the opposition leader can identify the need for critical investment into therapeutic supports,” the Yorta Yorta and Narrandjeri lawyer added.

Victoria is celebrating a 22 percent increase in adults being held on remand since April 2024, which has translated as a 216 percent increase in VALS adult clients detained without conviction since June 2024, while premier Allan is also singing the praises of a 71 percent increase in kids remanded since April last year, which has seen a 300 percent rise in VALS youth clients remanded since last June.

“As it stands currently, there are not enough corrections staff to oversee the prison population, which is resulting in ongoing and protracted lockdowns,” Waight underscored. “The announcement of more beds is deeply concerning, no amount of incentivisation will find the staffing cohort to adequately oversee this expansion.”

When nastiness is a governing predilection

Jacinta Allan is no trend setter when it comes to the giddy prospect of locking up minors, especially Black kids. The NSW Minns government got in before her in March 2024, with NSW bail laws that target Aboriginal child offenders in terms of doing time on remand or extra time for posting on social media. Indeed, 88 percent of a resulting rise in remandees since then have been Indigenous kids.

Yet, the escalating punitive colonial regimes being progressed in Crisafulli’s Queensland and Finocchiaro’s NT really take the cake when it comes to criminalising Aboriginal kids at an early age to ensure that overpolicing and denial of bail leads to getting caught up in a cycle of incarceration and reoffending that can last a lifetime and leaves little free time to focus on sovereign land rights.

Allan’s predecessor Dan Andrews was obviously going down the wrong path, according to the new Victorian premier, as he’d upped the age of criminal responsibility from 10 to 12, meaning 10- and 11-year-olds can no longer be locked up. In fact, Andrews was promising to raise the age to 14, which Jacinta reneged on last August, when she realised tough on crime is the only way to go.

Andrews also passed progressive bail reforms in 2023, in response to the death in custody of Gunditjmara, Dja Dja Wurrung, Wiradjuri and Yorta Yorta woman Veronica Nelson, who was remanded due to the 2018 double uplift law, which was leading people on bail for minor crimes who offend again being subjected to a tougher test and then remanded despite posing no safety risk.

The 2023 amendments to the Bail Act 1977 (VIC) resulted in further bail reforms so that minor crimes were no longer considered “an unacceptable risk” to grant bail, separate bail offences, like breach of bail and the offence of committing an indictable offence whilst on bail, were revoked, and remand-prohibited offences were established for minor crimes that should not result in bail refusal.

Yet, Allan’s Bail Amendment Bill 2025 really went to town. The premier repealed a law ensuring remanding children was “of last resort”, she reimposed breach of bail and committing an indictable offence whilst on bail, community safety has become the priority consideration of bail, high-risk offences result in tougher bail tests and repeat offenders now face the “toughest bail test ever”.

Increasing numbers reflect remandees

“It is incredibly misleading for premier Jacinta Allan to suggest that putting more people on remand and building new prison beds will keep the community safe,” Justice Reform Initiative executive director Dr Mindy Sotiri made certain in respect of Victorian Labor’s agenda.

“The evidence is very clear that the opposite is the case: prison does not work to deter crime, it does not work to address the drivers of crime, and the experience of incarceration increases the likelihood of people going on to reoffend.”

The Victorian Crime Statistics Agency has reported that over the 12 months to 31 December 2024, that the number of reported criminal incidents increased by 18.7 percent, which for the most part involved rises in theft and deception crimes during a cost-of-living crisis.

“Let’s be clear, the rising number of people in Victoria’s prisons and youth detention centres is not a result of increased crime — it is a direct consequence of harsher bail laws,” Sotiri underscored in a 14 May press release.

“Locking up more people, including more children, is not a measure of success. It is a sign of policy failure.”