To underpin the move,Police Minister Mark Ryan cited “some evidence” of an increase in the number of serious repeat offenders,something Childrens Court president Deborah Richards suggested was the result of new criteria.
“In the government’s view,this presents an exceptional crisis situation constituting a threat to public safety,” Ryan said in a statement.
Under such a declaration,the government can override the Human Rights Act,which it will do to apply tighter bail restrictions on an even wider group of children in its latest suite of measures,pitchedas a tough response to youth crime.
The measures include criminalising bail breaches,creating a separate sentencing regime for young people declared serious repeat offenders,and a requirement for those who breach conditional release orders to serve the remainder of their sentence in detention.
To justify this,Ryan pointed to December’s2021-22 Childrens Court annual report. In it,court president Deborah Richards said 17 per cent of all young people convicted of a crime were responsible for 48 per cent of all convictions.
While this represented a larger proportion than the previous financial year – up seven percentage points – Richards said the fact that young people were being assessed against a “serious repeat offender index” for the first time “may account for that difference”.