The Allan Government’s gutless backflip on changes to youth bail laws will harm generations of Victorian children, and keep children needlessly locked up away behind bars in pre-trial detention, said the Human Rights Law Centre.

The Victorian Government have turned their back on their commitment to make the state’s bail laws fairer for children and instead announced the introduction of a trial of deeply harmful and invasive electronic monitoring to surveil children. This follows the Allan Government postponing the much-needed reform last year.

Victoria’s bail laws are incompatible with the state’s Human Rights Charter. They unfairly remove children from their families and funnel them into prisons to be warehoused on remand before they have been convicted or sentenced for the alleged offending they were arrested for.

Harmful reverse-onus bail provisions have led to an increase in the number of children caged in youth prisons. A staggering 80 per cent of children detained in youth prisons are locked away waiting in pre-trial detention. Due to government failure to address discriminatory laws like the state’s youth bails laws, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children are remanded in pre-trial detention at unacceptably high rates.

Far from an alternative to imprisonment, electronic monitoring is another form of criminalisation and punishment. It has been proved a failure, will reproduce the harms of youth prisons, is excessive punishment, a disproportionate restriction of liberty and never an appropriate response to children engaging in alleged behaviour.

Monique Hurley, Managing Lawyer, Human Rights Law Centre:

“Children belong in our communities, not locked up in a prison cell. Victoria’s bail laws have been a disaster for children and will continue to cause needless harm. In backflipping on their commitment to make the youth bail laws fairer, the Allan Government has betrayed the state’s children and will condemn generations of children to the damage inherent in being left to languish in pre-trial detention.

“While shackling children with electronic monitoring devices might score cheap political points, they don’t prevent crime. All the intrusive technology will do is expand the walls of youth prisons into children’s homes and communities and set children up to fail.

“Victoria should be a place where every child grows up with their family, not under watch by police. Instead of funneling considerable amounts of money into surveilling children, the Allan Government should stick to their promise to make the state’s youth bail laws fairer and resource the community programs that actually support children avoid being criminalised in the first place.”

Image credit: Francois Goglins

Media Contact: 
Thomas Feng
Human Rights Law Centre
0431 285 275
thomas.feng@hrlc.org.au