Kids as young as 10 caught up in terrifying youth crime surge in Victoria

One of Victoria’s top cops says social media is contributing to a “disturbing” wave of youth crime, saying young offenders are often driven by the “thrill”.

An alarming spike in crimes committed by children aged 10 to 14 continues to rise, new figures have revealed.

The number of children in this age bracket committing burglaries shot up by 86.7 per cent in the past year to March this year.

The latest crime statistics released on Thursday show teens aged 15-17 were the most common offenders committing aggravated home burglaries.

Ten to 14-year-olds were the second most common offender.

The surge comes as the Herald Sun on Thursday revealed that police stations across Melbourne were closing at night as officers are diverted to tackle youth crime.

Overall crimes committed by 10-14-year-olds rose by 44.6 per cent on last year, with a total of 6418 alleged crimes committed compared to 5882 in 2022.

While those increases remain slightly below pre-pandemic levels, reoffending youth gang members have remained a crucial focus for police who have arrested the same nearly 450 youths 1536 times.

Police have laid 3400 charges over those offences.

Regional Operations Deputy Commissioner Rick Nugent said officers would continue to attempt to dismantle youth gangs that ‘remain an issue’. Picture: David Geraghty

Crimes committed by youths aged between 10 and 24 years old rose by 8.4 per cent to 45,786 incidents.

Regional Operations Deputy Commissioner Rick Nugent said officers would continue to attempt to dismantle youth gangs that “remain an issue”.

“In the past few years, we have reduced the number of serious and violent youth gang members on our watchlist, with 137 less known youth gang members in Victoria than when Operation Alliance commenced in September 2020,” he said.

He said youth offenders were often driven by the “thrill” of the crime.

“It’s this social media component to it as well. I’ve seen some of the footage. It’s quite disturbing,” Deputy Commissioner Nugent said.

“The shift (in aggravated burglaries) we’ve seen is to get access to top-end cars.

“…they don’t want a confrontation, they want to sneak in, get the keys and take the car.”

“Sometimes they’ll steal three cars from three separate addresses in one night.”

Despite the surge in crimes for offenders aged 10-14, Victoria Police still backed the state government’s push to raise the age of criminal responsibility to 12 next year.

“Victoria Police has worked with the government to work through what the risks are there, how you support children,” he said.

“My understanding is that they’re still working through what that looks like.”

“What we know is that 10 and 11 year olds are a lot less involved in this behaviour. As soon as you get to the 13, 14, we know from the numbers there are a lot more of those.”

Deputy Commissioner Nugent said the ultimate goal was to ensure youths were encouraged to move away from a life of crime.

“We know kids make mistakes. They make mistakes, they learn and they later on have a really productive life,” he said.

Police are ‘highly concerned’ over younger drivers driving high-powered stolen cars.

Some of Melbourne’s most affluent areas proved to be among the LGAs most targeted by youths, cementing concerns voiced by influencer Bec Judd in recent months.

“In more recent times the southeastern suburbs are more common, into northwest metro a little bit,” Deputy Commissioner Nugent said.

“The type of offending is spreading though, I visit regional areas and they’re seeing similar patterns.”

“The small cohort of people that are doing some of this offending have escalated into really serious and violent crime quite quickly at a very young age.”

Reoffending youth have remained a sticking point for police, with the nearly 450 of the same youths arrested 1536 times.

“It’s frustrating, but also, please also understand that that it’s complex,” Dept Comm. Nugent said.

“You don’t want all these kids locked up forever. But clearly, at some point, it gets to a level where a magistrate a judge determines that incarceration is necessary.”

Police resources are being affected as a result of the exploding youth crime rates.

Of the 60 police stations across metropolitan Melbourne, four were on Wednesday night forced to close their counters between 11pm and 7am.

Responding to the Herald Sun’s exclusive report on Thursday revealing some stations were closing early to ensure more police were deployed to tackle youth crime, Deputy Commissioner Nugent said: “They’re actually not station closures, they’re reception closures, primarily due to unplanned leave”.

“What local managers need to do is assess the priorities and the need,” he said.

“What they will consider is whether they’ll take a patrol unit off the road to sit someone at a reception counter,“ he said.

“You can’t prevent and respond to crimes sitting behind a reception counter.”

Meanwhile, police are “highly concerned” over younger drivers driving high-powered stolen cars.

Car thefts were up 18 per cent on last year and police have arrested more than 200 burglars at night in the past three months.

Mr Nugent said “significant energy and resources” such as the Air Wing, Dog Squad and Public Order Response Team were being poured into tackling burglaries and car thefts that were on the rise.

“Our intelligence is telling us there has been a decrease in burglaries and associated car thefts since the operation commenced, however we will not let up,” he said.