Victorian teenagers who commit serious violent offences now face penalties previously reserved for adults, after the Allan government's so-called "adult time for violent crime" laws came into effect. Young people aged 14 to 17 convicted of aggravated home invasion or aggravated carjacking can now be sentenced to up to 25 years in prison, a sharp increase from the previous three-year maximum, according to 9News.
The sentencing gap between adults and young offenders has long drawn scrutiny. In Victorian courts, 97 per cent of adults sentenced for aggravated home invasion or carjacking receive prison terms. For children and young people convicted of the same offences, that figure sits at just 34 per cent. Proponents of the new laws argue that disparity has undermined public confidence in the justice system and failed to deter repeat offending.
The Allan government has pointed to Queensland as a model. Premier David Crisafulli's government introduced comparable legislation in December 2024, and officials there have since cited a 7.2 per cent drop in the number of victims of crime. Whether that reduction can be attributed directly to the sentencing changes, or reflects broader trends in policing and social conditions, remains a matter of debate among criminologists.
Alongside the youth sentencing changes, the government has announced a ban on good character references in sentencing across all offence categories. At present, such references are only excluded in specific cases, including child sexual abuse matters. The expanded ban would prevent courts from treating evidence of a defendant's good character as a mitigating factor in any case.
Attorney General Sonya Kilkenny framed the character reference ban in terms of victim experience. "Victim-survivors of crimes are having to sit in court and hear that the person who harmed them is a 'good person'," she said. "That compounds the trauma, diminishes their experience and can't continue." Premier Jacinta Allan added that the reforms were intended to strengthen support for victim-survivors within the justice system. Courts will retain the ability to weigh other standard sentencing factors, including the likelihood of reoffending. The legislation formalising these measures is expected to be introduced to Parliament later this year.
Youth advocates and experts have broadly criticised the direction of these reforms. Critics argue that incarcerating teenagers alongside adult offenders in adult facilities is likely to increase, rather than reduce, reoffending rates. Research from bodies including the Australian Institute of Criminology has consistently found that longer custodial sentences for young people do not reliably reduce recidivism, and that early intervention and community-based programmes tend to produce better long-term outcomes. There is also a question of proportionality: sentencing a 14-year-old to a potential 25-year term raises serious concerns about rehabilitation and the developmental capacity of adolescents to understand the full consequences of their actions.
Those concerns are legitimate and deserve serious engagement. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, to which Australia is a signatory, emphasises that detention of children should be a measure of last resort. Advocacy groups have pointed to the overrepresentation of First Nations youth in the justice system as a particular risk, warning that harsher sentencing frameworks tend to deepen existing inequities rather than resolve the social conditions that drive offending.
At the same time, the concerns of victim-survivors are real. Aggravated home invasion and carjacking are serious offences that cause lasting harm. Community expectations of a justice system that treats comparable crimes comparably, regardless of the offender's age, are not unreasonable. The Queensland data, while preliminary, suggests deterrence effects may be operating in some form, even if the causal picture is not yet clear. The Sentencing Advisory Council of Victoria will likely be called upon to monitor outcomes as these laws take effect.
The Allan government's reforms sit within a broader national trend toward tougher youth justice policies, driven partly by genuine community concern and partly by electoral pressure. What the evidence asks of policymakers is not a choice between accountability and compassion, but a system that holds both. Longer sentences may satisfy the demand for consequence; they do not, on their own, reduce the likelihood that a teenager will reoffend once released. Getting that balance right will require careful monitoring of outcomes, a willingness to adjust settings based on evidence, and sustained investment in the early intervention programmes that sentence-length alone cannot replace. The legislation, when it reaches Parliament, will be the moment to test whether the government has genuinely grappled with that complexity. For further context on Victoria's youth justice framework, the Victorian Department of Justice and Community Safety publishes relevant data and policy documents.