Academics, prison workers uneasy about Victoria’s tough new bail laws

Victorians are celebrating a long-overdue overhaul of bail laws amid a crime crisis but there’s a side of the story that has been missed.

Imagine waking up in the middle of the night to a group of men with their faces covered, some carrying machetes, standing over you in bed.

For so many Victorians, they don’t need to imagine it — it is forever seared into their memories.

The suburbs, particularly those affluent areas around bayside Melbourne, have become home to a crime crisis that went largely uninterrupted for the best part of two years.

Multiple aggravated burglaries have been committed by youths, the vast majority of whom are under 20 years old, every night.

The offenders usually get away with car keys and wallets and take a joyride through the suburbs. If they’re caught, they join the revolving door of appearing before a magistrate and being granted bail only to commit the same crime again.

So you can understand why most are rejoicing after Premier Jacinta Allan on Wednesday promised to introduce the country’s toughest bail laws.

She said she was “deeply, deeply sorry” to the victims of crime and that community safety was now her top priority.

A man dressed in a face mask attempts a brazen burglary of a bayside home. Picture: 9NEWS

New tests targeting repeat offenders will be part of the reformed bail laws and a machete ban will come into place.

But academics and those who have worked in Victoria’s prison system say there is a real danger associated with blanket rules around bail.

Associate Professor in Criminality and Justice at RMIT, Dr Marietta Martinovic, said the Premier is making a mistake.

“I’m definitely not in favour of strict bail laws,” she told news.com.au. “For young people, they are proven not to work.”

Dr Martinovic says that jails will become overcrowded and young offenders who are remanded for long periods of time will simply become more dangerous when they inevitably get out.

“The earlier you progress somebody through the justice system, the worse it is for that person. You’re creating future criminal activity — prisons don’t fix people, they just don’t,” she said.

“Even if you did all the wonderful things, all these programs, when a person gets out, what do they have? It’s so much harder to get a job, they are behind the eight ball in terms of technology. It’s just not the answer.

“In custody, they are surrounded by other people who have done criminal behaviour. They learn about other criminal behaviour they can engage in.

Rebecca Judd says she just wants Melbourne to return to being “the best city in the world”.

“(Under the proposed changes) we would look at a young person as an adult which I think is very dangerous. Putting somebody in custody creates angry individuals. You’re creating angry individuals and that is a very dangerous thing.

“The crime has already occurred. There’s nothing that you or I can do or say to make it better right this second. I feel I have a duty as an academic to prevent future crime. That’s my main aim. The only way to do that is to delay as much as possible the entry into the criminal justice system. The earlier you process them, the worse it is for everybody.”

She said one thing being forgotten in this discussion is that “young people age out of crime”.
“That’s 101. We mustn’t forget that. Of course there are some young people that have to be put away and have to go to prison. I’m not saying that we should shut down prisons.

“Yes, it’s difficult. But when we make these blanket decisions around bail laws, we can’t be emotive. I’m not wanting to be sounding dismissive. I’m looking at the future.”

Her comments were echoed by others, including those who work in prisons.

A former prison worker named Molly told 3AW the Premier’s reaction to the problem was “knee-jerk” and “embarrassing”.

“Increasing the number of people on remand and refusing bail is going to cause so much trouble in the jail system,” she said.

“People on remand don’t do programs, there’s no intervention for them while they’re on remand. They spend so much time on remand before they finally get to court that they end up getting out on time served and they’re usually in a worse situation than they were before they went in.

The Premier, right, announced sweeping new bail laws will become the toughest in Australia when introduced.

“Obviously there are situations when people should not at all be getting bail, but what are they doing with these people when they’re in jail?

“Because lots of them are just sitting there until they get out. I wish the Premier would talk to people who work in prisons. None of these people are getting life sentences, they’re going to be out again one day.”

The mother of a young Aboriginal woman who died while on remand for shoplifting has also weighed in, saying the Premier’s comments around bail are an “insult to my daughter Veronica’s memory”.

Veronica Nelson, 37, died in custody in 2020 after being remanded for a crime that does not normally carry a prison sentence.

Among those who have long spoken out about the need for reform is model and business owner Rebecca Judd, the wife of former AFL star Chris Judd.

On Wednesday she wrote that it was “too late for many” and that changes should’ve come in under former Premier Daniel Andrews.

“Imagine the lives that could’ve been saved. Imagine the terror experienced by so many Victorians that could’ve been stopped if the Dictator (sic) had acted when I called this out.” she wrote on social media.

“Today Jacinta Allan has announced the toughest bail laws in the country. Yes it is too late for so many but it is a start.”

Since 2022, Ms Judd has used her platform to demand action to tackle crime in Melbourne, declaring she feels unsafe in the city.

Melbourne media personality Fifi Box has also led the way on calls for change.

A furious and deeply concerned Box had raged about Melbourne’s troubling crime wave, taking aim at the Premier in recent weeks.

Her breakfast show, Fifi, Fev & Nick even started a petition calling for bail reform for repeat offenders in Victoria, gaining more than 100,000 signatures.

“A few of our producers, they said ‘do you want to get Jacinta Allan on, the Premier?’. I’m going to be very transparent here, I said absolutely not,” Box said on February 26.

“I have no interest in what she has to say because I watched an interview with her on Sunrise yesterday where one of her suggestions was people might need to start locking their cars, making sure their cars are locked.

“Oh please, that’s 15 years ago. We’ve moved on from locking cars. But she said we need to do more. Here’s the thing, you haven’t, you haven’t done more. This is not just the last few months, this is now years of it.”

The new bail reforms are expected to be introduced into parliament next Tuesday.