Labor soft on youth gangs

John Brumby is again showing Labor is soft on crime by enabling juvenile offenders who avoid being charged for six months after committing an offence to escape being charged at all without their agreement or special permission from the Children’s Court.

“Labor’s rejection of attempts by the Victorian Liberal Nationals Coalition to keep the current twelve-month time limit means youth gangs who assault innocent Victorians or deface our trains and homes with graffiti can escape punishment if they can avoid being identified or caught for six months,” Shadow Attorney-General Robert Clark said today.

The new law will apply to all summary offences, including offences such as assault and graffiti.

The Attorney-General told Parliament last week he wants to ‘put the onus back on the police to commence and complete investigations within a timely period’ and if young offenders are not charged within six months ‘a whole range of therapeutic justice measures cannot be interacted with that young child’.

“There is no ‘therapeutic justice’ in allowing gangs of youths who assault innocent Victorians to escape justice because the police can’t identify them,” Mr Clark said.

“The statement by the Attorney-General that he is ‘put(ting) the onus back on the police’ is an insult to hard-working police who are swamped by violent crime and struggling to protect Victorians because of Labor’s failure to fund more police on our streets.

“Police put many hours of work into tracking down violent youths and matching graffiti tags with offenders, and can’t put investigations of burglaries, robberies or drug trafficking on hold while they rush to meet the six month deadline on filing graffiti charges.

“The Attorney-General’s absurd proposal to allow police to apply to the Children’s Court for extensions of time to up to 12 months from the time of the offence will put huge pressure on both police and the Children’s Court.

“Victoria’s Children’s Court already has the longest backlog of cases waiting to be heard of any Children’s Court in Australia, with 5,591 cases waiting to be heard as of June last year.

“The Attorney-General should abandon this foolish and ill-considered proposal which only serves to again prove the Brumby Government is soft on crime and out of touch with Victorians,” Mr Clark said.