New ‘Young Offender Plan’ will use millions of dollars seized from criminal activities
Intervention programs for alleged youth criminals will be funded by money seized from adult crimes, but the opposition has questions about the rollout of a new plan.
Police & Courts
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Intervention programs aimed at youth criminal offenders will use money seized from drug busts and other criminal activity, the state government has revealed, as part of plans to crackdown on youth crime.
On Thursday Attorney-General Kyam Maher officially announced the new Young Offender Plan, which will see a toughening of bail laws for serious repeat offenders, with new bikie-style meeting bans to target teenage street gangs.
As part of the plan, $3 million will be invested in intervention programs targeting serial youth offenders, a move that will offer them a “last-resort chance” before they enter the adult justice system.
Mr Maher said this money would come from the justice rehabilitation education fund, which uses proceeds from the confiscation of criminal assets and money.
“This is money that has been seized from adult criminals, that we’re going to apply to try and stop people getting involved further in the criminal justice system, when they’re young offenders,” Mr Maher said.
SA Police Commissioner Grant Stevens said there had been a “genuine desire” to make changes to give police more capacity to deal with offenders and “increase community safety”.
“We are strongly supportive of these measures that are being proposed that will contribute to enhancing safety in the South Australian community,” Mr Stevens said.
The Advertiser revealed on Wednesday that a mere 20 offenders were responsible for more than 600 crimes, or 11 per cent of all Youth Court offences, numbers that Mr Stevens said are “quite stark”.
“The vast majority of young people who come into contact with police or the criminal justice system are diverted away and never come back.”
“So we are talking about measures being put in place to deal with that very small number who cause the greatest impact on community safety and are overrepresented in the youth justice system.”
Mr Maher said he would be convening a roundtable with key stakeholders to discuss appropriate interventions, which will take place before the end of March.
The announcement came as the opposition labelled youth crime “out of control”, while questioning why the reforms had not been introduced sooner.
“We’ve seen since 2021 a 50 per cent increase in matters before the youth court,” opposite spokesman Jack Batty said on Thursday.
“We’ve got a small group of youth criminals who are seemingly treating the justice system like some sort of frequent flyer program.”
Mr Batty also called for more detail on the Young Offender Plan and the proposed review into bail laws.
“We want to know what the timeline is for this review, we want to know what the scope of the review will be,” he said.
The announcement came after four men, including a youth, were arrested early on Thursday morning after a brawl saw two people taken to hospital with stab wounds.
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