- Published:
- Wednesday, 15 June 2022 at 10:11 am
Tom (not his real name) is a teenager with an intellectual disability. He also has a sibling with disability who requires around the clock care.
His first encounter with police was for a family violence incident that was driven by alcohol. Tom was arrested and taken to the police station.
His family supported him and no further action was taken, however he continued to struggle with alcohol and was later charged with property and driving offences.
The previous incident of family violence was the reason police identified as a reason that Tom was not considered a ‘first time offender’. Consent for court-ordered diversion was repeatedly refused.
Ultimately Tom was able to get diversion, however despite his youth, intellectual disability and family support, the process for obtaining consent from the prosecution took several months. It required multiple court adjournments for Tom’s lawyer to coordinate several referrals.
Tom’s case is one of several stories we highlighted in our submission to the Victorian Government’s statutory review of the Children and Justice Legislation Amendment (Youth Justice Reform) Act 2017.
The review’s final report was published last month.
It found there have been significant positive developments in youth justice in Victoria which reflected a range of broader reform to the system, including the Armytage and Ogloff Youth Justice Review and Strategy: Meeting Needs and Reducing Reoffending.
The latest review identified priority issues that require further consideration and 20 recommendations for improvements.
It included a recommendation to seek to repeal the requirement for the prosecution to consent to diversion before it can be ordered by the Court, which played a key role in Tom’s experience and delays in finalising his matter.
It found that the decision about court-based diversion is ‘properly the role of the judicial officer’ and would also align Victoria’s laws with other states and territories.
From punitive to person-centred
In our submission, we called for the removal for prosecution consent to court-ordered diversion.
It is one of eight recommendations we made, including:
- To repeal the serious youth offender regime, including uplift provisions and mandatory minimum, sentences, recognising the need for specialised rehabilitative responses.
- The need to reorient the youth justice system to support a therapeutic approach and prioritise rehabilitation, recovery and reintegration in the community and reduce reoffending
- To explicit acknowledge the systemic background factors which lead to the over-representation of specific cohorts of children, including First Nations and culturally diverse children, as well as those involved in the child protection system
- To improve the effectiveness of youth control orders by reducing restrictive conditions and enabling more flexible and therapeutic supports
- To remove restrictions on access to the dual track system and further expand eligibility from 18 to 25
- To reform bail laws so that children always have a presumption in favour of bail, and to raise the minimum age of criminal responsibility from 10 to 14 years, as we have long advocated for.
Our first recommendation was fully adopted by the review, along with several others that were either adopted in part or highlighted as requiring further consideration.
Among its recommendations, the review called for better data reporting, strengthening cultural considerations when sentencing orders are made in relation to Aboriginal children and young people and a tailored youth justice service model for children aged 10 to 13.
We noted in our submission that the Act has been superseded by a better understanding of the harms of the system on children.
‘Improving youth justice inputs and outcomes relies on addressing the way in which the net of the criminal justice system is cast too wide, due to police responses and practices,’ our submission stated.
‘… this review is an opportunity to reorient youth justice objectives towards rehabilitation and reintegration.’
Our submission drew on the experiences of our clients and lawyers.
Victoria Legal Aid has a specialised youth crime and child protection services operating state-wide.
More information
Read our full submission.
Read the full statutory review.
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