Victorian Government to Impose Adult Sentences for Violent Youth Crime

“All children 14 and above committing violent crimes – like invading someone’s home or injuring someone with a machete in a sickening act of violence – will face adult sentences in adult courts, under Adult Time for Violent Crime,” said the Victorian Allan government on 12 November 2025, as it announced yet further extreme youth crime amendments in line with an ongoing nationwide trend.

The age of criminal responsibility in Victoria is 12 years old. Victorian premier Jacinta Allan and attorney general Sonya Kilkenny explained on Wednesday last week that the Adult Time for Violent Crime policy targets 14- to 17-year-olds who commit certain serious crimes, so they’re then treated as adults in court.

“There are too many victims, not enough consequences,” Allan explained, in respect of the policy that will disproportionately target First Nations children. “We want courts to treat these violent children like adults, so gaol is more likely and sentences are longer. This will mean more violent youth offenders going to gaol, facing serious consequences.”

These laws are coming in the context of a shift to cracking down on youth crime across the jurisdictions of NSW, Victoria, Queensland and the Northern Territory that was commenced by the NSW Minns government in March 2024, and Allan’s move to impose adult sentences on child offenders 14 to 17 mirrors a policy that the Queensland government imposed last December.

Independent Senator Lidia Thorpe has called out this policy shift in the state that she represents in Canberra. She underscores that these laws are going to disproportionately target Black and Brown kids, with laws that can potentially see a 14-year-old sentenced to life imprisonment, and she’s again called on federal Labor to intervene in these extreme laws aimed at locking up kids for long periods.

For the term of their natural lives

“When child offenders are sentenced in an adult court, most go to gaol,” Victorian AG Kilkenny said somewhat ominously last week. “Adult courts put more emphasis on victims, violence and community safety.”

The casual manner in which the idea of sending kids to prison for adult time is being spoken about in Victoria, mimics the way in which the Queensland Crisafulli Liberal Nationals government did while running in that state’s election in the second half of 2024, with the same scenario also playing out last year in the Northern Territory, with elections predicated on kids being targeted for tougher bail.

The adult time laws aim to increase the likelihood of prison for 14- to 17-year-olds and lengthen the time they’ll spend in prison dramatically. Victorian Labor explains that right now, 34 percent of children before the courts over aggravated home invasion or aggravated carjacking offences spend time in gaol, however if they go to an adult court that figure hikes to 97 percent.

If kids are sent to an adult court, following the laws the Allan government is planning to introduce later this year, it will see juries coming into play, whereas currently kids are normally subjected to judge-alone trials.

As for the increase in penalties, the possibility of prison for a 14-year-old carries a maximum of 3 years when tried in the Victorian Children’s Court, while the Country Court can impose up to 20 years for aggravated home invasion or carjacking and 25 years applies to intentionally causing serious injury through gross violence. These offences will now carry life imprisonment.

The criminal offences that adult time will apply to for charged 14- to 17-year-olds are aggravated home invasion, home invasion, intentionally causing injury in circumstances of gross violence, which includes machete crime, recklessly causing injury in circumstances of gross violence, aggravated carjacking, carjacking, serious and repeat aggravated burglary and serious and repeat armed robbery.

When asked about what he thought of his Labor colleague’s decision to start locking up youths in prison for perhaps the rest of their natural lives, prime minister Anthony Albanese told the press over the weekend that “Australians want to be safe”, and it is up to state governments to determine their own policy and that’s what he considers Jacinta Allan is up to.

Nationwide crackdown on youth

The NSW government kicked off the national youth crime crackdown, with its response to regional youth crime in March 2024. This resulted in a law that involves 14- to 17-year-olds who commit serious motor theft or break and enter crimes while on bail being remanded, along with a new post and boast offence, which makes bragging about a crime online increase its maximum by 2 years.

Next cab off the rank was Victoria, with premier Allan seemingly following the NSW move that resulted in 88 percent of kids captured under the new laws being First Nations kids. Allan promised her state in August last year that a hike in the age of criminal responsibility from 10 to 12, would not be progressed to 14 as once promised, and she further implemented a severe youth bail regime.

These crackdowns on youth crime being launched in the southeastern Australian states was unusual, as concerted efforts against suggested “youth crime waves” are more likely to occur in the north of the continent. And the next jurisdiction following suit was the Northern Territory, with the coming of the extremely divisive NT Country Liberal government.

The NT Finocchiaro government hit territory parliament swinging in October 2024, as it introduced five tough-on-crime bills, which had a focus on both youth and adults, and the Country Liberals are now in the midst of overhauling the jurisdiction’s youth crime legislation. And with extremely high Indigenous incarceration rates in the NT, this crackdown clearly takes aim at local First Peoples.

The predecessor to the proposed Victorian adult sentencing regime were the adult crime, adult time laws that Queensland premier David Crisafulli enacted for Christmas 2024. The framework began with 13 serious criminal offences singled out for youths to face adult penalties in respect of, with a second tranche of laws resulting in 20 more offences carrying adult time for kids passed in May.

So, now it seems that the northern laws that came on the back of the laws progressed in the southern states are now influencing those down south. And due to the disproportionate rates of First Nations adults and children incarcerated in jurisdictions right across the continent, these laws are expected to target Indigenous youth in a disproportionate manner.

A racist policy

“The premier wants to lock up 14-year-olds for life and pretend that’s leadership. It’s unfathomably cruel and the most shameful attempt to cling to power,” said Senator Thorpe on the day of the policy announcement. “This isn’t about safety, it’s about the looming state election, appeasing white Herald-Sun-reading swing voters, and keeping Labor in power by hurting Black and Brown children.”

“While people in this country look with horror at the abuse happening to children in Queensland and the NT, Jacinta Allan sees a political lifeline. Allan is willing to destroy children’s lives to stay in power,” the Gunnai, Gunditjmara and Djab Wurrung politician continued, adding that First Nations kids and the children of immigrants, in particular African and Pasifika youth, are being targeted.

The recent murders of 15-year-old Dau Akueng and 12-year-old Chol Achiek by other teenagers using machetes as weapons has served to fuel the campaign to crackdown harder on crime. The Victorian Crime Statistic Agency states that crime rates in Victoria are on the rise. However, the latest ABS figures regarding recorded crime reveal an ongoing decrease in Victoria in respect of youth crime.

Crisafulli’s Queensland Liberal Nationals party successfully ran for parliament last year on a policy that highlighted rising youth crime rates and the need to crack down hard on these actors, yet at the same time that this campaign was being progressed, a report by the ABC revealed that crime rates in the northern state were at a 14 year low.

The Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service points out that the bail reform that premier Allan saw enacted in March this year, has already seen a 46 percent increase in Aboriginal people being refused bail, while a corresponding rise in the non-Indigenous being refused bail only rose by 6 percent, and these laws have dramatically hit Aboriginal youth with a 233 percent hike in these kids being refused bail.

VALS further insists that these laws breach the terms of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. The Victorian laws are also part of the broader crackdown on Indigenous youth nationwide.

“The federal minister for Indigenous Australians has said she will crack down on states and territories undermining their Closing the Gap commitments,” Thorpe further outlined last week.

“She must make good on that promise and pull the premier into line immediately,” the independent senator for Victoria concluded. “The federal minister should be picking up the phone today to tell premier Allan that Victoria will face consequences for this.”