The Victorian government is set to introduce its youth justice bill on the back of a rise in youth crime rates in the state.
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00:00This new youth justice bill will feature a range of measures.
00:06This includes raising the age of criminal responsibility from 10 to 12.
00:11Now Victoria will be Australia's first state to do this.
00:15As the government says it's really keen to see younger children stay out of the criminal
00:20justice system.
00:21Although children aged 10 and 11 will still be able to be collected by police and taken
00:27to a safe space until someone's able to take care of them if they're deemed to be a risk
00:32to themselves or to others.
00:35Now ankle bracelets or electronic monitoring will also be rolled out as part of this bill.
00:41This will see 50 youth offenders trialled with electronic bracelets over two years in
00:47a bid to curb and crack down on bail breaches.
00:50There'll also be an increased focus on warnings and cautions with trials in NSW showing that
00:58a focus on this and this early intervention is proving effective in deterring young people
01:03from re-offending and having to go to court.
01:06There'll also be a focus and a crackdown on older people and closing loopholes which essentially
01:12allows them to recruit young people to do their dirty work for them.
01:17And there'll also be a victim register rollout.
01:21Now this will allow people who are victims of youth crime to receive more relevant updates
01:27and also have their say about how it's impacted them which will inform parole conditions.
01:33Here's a little bit of what Premier Jacinta Allen had to say about this bill.
01:38This is about delivering a youth justice system that keeps Victorians safe and yes that does
01:44mean holding young offenders to account while also seeing those who are less likely to continue
01:51to re-offend, keeping those kids out of the criminal justice system, stopping them from
01:56becoming hardened adult offenders is going to be a key feature of this bill.
02:02Now this bill has been rolled out following a spate of crime across Victoria involving
02:07young people and the government says it hopes that these measures will go a long way to
02:12helping address some of those problems.