Right: Violence on Melbourne's streets: scenes like these are thought to influence many calls for sentencing to be harsh.
Further implicationsOne of the concerns voiced by some critics of the proposed mandatory sentencing of young offenders is that our detention system is not geared to deal with a dramatic increase in the number of young people being kept in custody.
In three years there has already been a 36 per cent jump in the number of youths in detention in Victoria. Some are being detained while awaiting trial. Currently there are calls for supported bail provisions as one way of dealing with the large number of young people being detained.
The Children's Court president, Judge Paul Grant, has called for action to ease the pressure on the system as part of the Children's Court's 2010 annual report. Judge Grant stated, 'With the increasing number of young people in our cells each day and the increasing numbers in the remand section of the youth justice facility at Parkville, the development of (a bail support) program would seem to be a priority.'
The Baillieu Government's intention, however, is to make bail terms more rigorous. This is likely to increase pressure on the prison system.
Before the election, the Coalition promised $268 million to fund 500 additional beds at existing jails in its first term to address the existing overcrowding in Victorian prisons. However, the Justice Department has argued that more needs to be done than this. The Baillieu government announced in last month's budget it would build a new men's prison and has allocated $2 million for Corrections Victoria to prepare a business case.
The Brumby government was also planning to build a new male correction facility.
Under the former government a business case had already been prepared by Corrections Victoria for a multipurpose men's complex of 700 to 800 beds.
The cost of building, operating and maintaining such a prison over the typical 25-year term of a public-private partnership (PPP) project would be over $2 billion. This figure does not include guards and other operating costs.
Such plans do not currently take into account what additional facilities would be necessary were Victoria to significantly increase the number of 16- and 17-year-olds it commits to terms in youth detention centres.