Victorian Labor would lock low-level young offenders into a year of rehab, a $204 million pledge critics call mandatory sentencing

A young Victorian caught stealing, damaging property or in a minor assault could be removed from the community for up to a year under a law-and-order pledge Labor unveiled on Sunday, less than three weeks before the state election.

Premier Ben Carroll announced the $204 million plan, which would create new “mandatory therapeutic orders”. Courts could use them to place low and mid-level young offenders in a secure residential youth justice facility, under supervision around the clock, for up to 12 months. The government is pitching it as an Australian first.

Who would it apply to?

The government says the orders are aimed at young people involved in theft, vandalism, property damage and minor assaults, particularly those with drug, alcohol or mental health problems.

Crime Prevention Minister Paul Edbrooke said serious youth crime already leads to detention, but there was no strong option for lower-level offending. He described the new order as “tougher” than jail, and said rehabilitation should not be a matter of choice, adding that parents had asked for it.

Carroll said too many young offenders currently get a slap on the wrist or a short stint in detention, which leaves too little time to change their behaviour.

The government has not said how old a young person would need to be, how a court would decide who receives an order, or when the scheme would begin.

What would happen inside?

Young people on an order would attend drug and alcohol rehabilitation and learn practical skills such as cooking, cleaning and budgeting, as well as school and trade or skills training, according to the government.

Edbrooke named Malmsbury Youth Justice Centre, north-west of Melbourne, as one place the orders could be served. The centre was reopened this year after being out of use for nearly two years; the government said in October 2025 that the reopening followed a 46 per cent rise in remand numbers after the state’s bail changes in March 2025, and its running cost is more than $141 million over five years.

Edbrooke said the program could treat up to nearly 500 young people over two years and could be expanded.

Who is against it?

The Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service called the plan a “punitive and unimaginative election commitment”. Its chief executive, Nerita Waight, said it put detaining young people for low-level offending ahead of funding the support that keeps them connected to family, community and culture, and that the major parties were offering vulnerable young people only two choices: locking them up or shutting them out of their communities.

Why now?

Law and order is one of the defining issues of this campaign. The Coalition opposition, which leads the polls, and the government have both announced a run of tough-on-crime policies. Advance voting opens in 10 days.

The pledge also cuts against the trend in the numbers: Victoria’s overall crime rate fell over the past year, according to the state’s crime statistics agency. Police say 10 to 17-year-olds remain heavily over-represented in serious violent crime.

It is the latest step in a hardening of Labor’s approach. The government abandoned its plan to raise the age of criminal responsibility to 14 in 2024, and in 2025 introduced “Adult Time for Violent Crime” laws under which young people aged 14 and over charged with serious violent offences can be tried in the County Court.

What did the opposition announce?

Opposition Leader Jess Wilson spent Sunday on a different pitch: a $40 million Major Events Attraction Fund. A Coalition government would work with TKO, the company behind the UFC, WWE and Zuffa Boxing, to bring all three to Melbourne over four years, with the UFC possibly arriving as early as next year, according to shadow minister David Southwick, who put the economic benefit at close to $300 million.

“Melbourne is the sporting capital of the world,” Wilson said. Victoria lost the Australian MotoGP to South Australia earlier this year.