Victoria Police taskforce watches every move of our 64 worst teen thugs
RANDOM door knocks, checking they show up at school — it sounds simple but this police plan targeting our worst teen crims in the outer west is delivering results.
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MORE than 60 dangerous young criminals have been put on a special watch list.
In a radical initiative, Taskforce Wayward has been assigned to monitor every move of 64 youths placed on a watch list for aggravated burglary and home invasion.
Detectives, who are assigned one troublesome teen each, knock on doors in the middle of the night to make sure young offenders are home, check they are showing up to school or sports sessions, and track them down when they go missing.
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The young targets of the new program, being piloted in Melbourne’s west, are classed as being at an “extreme” or “high” risk of reoffending.
Victoria Police records suggest the tactic is working.
There have been no home invasions in the suburbs covered by the initiative during the last two months.
The experiment with a watch list comes as youth crime data, obtained by the Herald Sun, reveals that last year there was an average of more than one incident a day of a child being involved in storming houses or committing burglaries while armed with dangerous weapons.
These included children as young as 10. Each week, there was an arrest of a child for the new, more serious charge of aggravated home invasion.
Detective Senior Sergeant Brett Kahan told the Herald Sun that after battling a frustrating spate of violent crimes Victorian investigators were now adopting a “whole new way of thinking”.
“They were literally just investigating, arresting, investigating, arresting … there was something missing.
“It was clear it wasn’t working, because the crimes weren’t decreasing. So something had to shift,” Sen-Sgt Kahan said.
The 64 teens on the list live between Little River and Melton and have been linked to “high harm” and “high victim” crimes like home invasion or armed robbery.
There are 30 who are considered “extreme risk” offenders, including a dozen currently behind bars. Detectives continue to speak with those locked up, and check in with their families; the focus is on linking them back to school, TAFE, work, and sport.
Officers say the new approach to “get ahead of the game” before youths ransack another home involves identifying warning signs, like falling school attendance or school holiday boredom.
Sen-Sgt Kahan said: “Previously, we wouldn’t engage with the kids. We would charge them, oppose their bail, get them incarcerated and move on. Now the investigators are investing in them.”
Non-detectives from a proactive-policing unit are also involved, keeping an eye on children in the offender’s social group, like a little brother or younger mate, and finding them other activities in a bid to deter them from mixing with the wrong crowd.
A typical working week for a detective could now include school drop-ins, calls with community leaders, and cups of tea with parents who worry a child is on the wrong path.
Those who end up in custody on the other side of town after committing crimes away from Wayward’s zone still find themselves confronted by Wayward detectives, in an attempt to deter them.
There hasn’t been a home invasion in Wayward’s zone — Hobsons Bay, Maribyrnong, Wyndham, Brimbank, and Melton — since March.
“There has to be a correlation ... it can’t be a fluke,” Sen-Sgt Kahan said.
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