The Final Report is over 900 pages, and includes 73 findings and more than 100 recommendations – it’s a lot to take in.  

VCOSS has produced this member briefing to highlight parts of the report that are relevant to the community sector, and opportunities for further engagement with the Victorian Government on criminal justice system reform.   

Why the Final Report matters 

Over the nine months of this Inquiry, the Legal and Social Issues Committee (the Committee) received 170 written submissions and conducted 50 hearings with more than 90 witnesses.  

The Final Report synthesises this engagement and provides a significant body of research, evidence and expert opinion on criminal justice system issues and opportunities for reform.  

Although the Inquiry was not commissioned by the Victorian Government, the Government is required to respond to the Committee’s Final Report within six months, including whether it supports any recommendations in the report.  

The Final Report at a glance  

The Committee Chair, Fiona Patten, notes in the Final Report’s foreword:  

“We need urgent work to improve the way we deliver justice in Victoria, to ensure our community safety, and to find modern solutions to reduce offending and reoffending.” 

She emphasises that to achieve this, government must be focussed on:  

• Support for victims of crime  
• Rehabilitation of offenders  
• Circumventing recidivism  
• Ending overrepresentation of Aboriginal people in prisons  
• Ensuring early intervention for Victorians experiencing disadvantage.  

Many of the Committee’s findings reflect insights and evidence from the community sector. The impact of the sector’s advocacy is clear.  

In particular, the Committee acknowledges the link between socioeconomic disadvantage and increased risk of criminalisation and victimisation, and makes a number of recommendations aimed at prioritising early intervention, and providing social supports to divert people away from the system.  

The Committee’s findings identify a range of factors that contribute to the risk of criminalisation and involvement with the justice system – including poverty, housing instability, trauma, discrimination, unmet health and social support needs, disengagement with education and employment.  

Many of the recommendations to respond to the findings are sensible – expanding on, coordinating and monitoring existing programs and services, such as: 

• Long-term funding for community legal assistance and health justice partnerships  
• Expanding youth programs in primary and secondary schools  
• Investment in community-based social, health, legal and forensic services that address risk factors for criminalisation. 

These recommendations complement and, if adopted by government, can build on the Early Intervention Investment Framework introduced in the 2021-22 State Budget, as well as the Crime Prevention Strategy and the common clients reforms. However, there are some areas of the report where we would have welcomed greater specificity, stronger action and/or a more ambitious systemic solution put forward in place of a programmatic solution. Some recommendations, while sensible, would not be sufficient to deliver the transformational change required to reorient the system from one that unnecessarily criminalises and incarcerates people and entrenches disadvantage and exclusion to an approach that prioritises building strong and safe communities and resilient community members.    

For example, with regard to crime prevention and early intervention, the Committee notes “placebased early intervention initiatives which are community designed and led, and which facilitate collaboration between schools, social support and legal services, can effectively address socioeconomic disadvantage compounded within a geographical area, with flow on benefits for young people.” This is an excellent observation.  

In response to this finding, the Committee recommends that the Victorian Government extend the Youth Crime Prevention Grants to enable community led placebased early intervention initiatives which are achieving demonstrable benefits to continue, and to expand access to the Grants Program to additional communities (r 7).  

We see this as a missed opportunity to recommend a more ambitious solution: the establishment of a justice reinvestment strategy. While the Youth Crime Prevention Grants are a great initiative, and we are not opposed to their expansion, justice reinvestment is a more transformative approach.  

Like crime prevention grants, justice reinvestment supports community-led initiatives and strategies that aim to address the underlying causes of crime and stopping crime from occurring in the first place.  However, a justice reinvestment approach goes a step further than grant-making for one-off projects. Under a justice reinvestment approach, partners (including government) make longer-term investments in long-term change. Decisions and action are underpinned by new forms of community governance and funding structures. There is a strong focus on communities owning and controlling data and using that data to determine which interventions will deliver the best social and economic return on investment for their community. 

In Victoria, a justice investment strategy could also establish systems to ensure that shared learning and evidence can be derived from place-based programs.    

Crime prevention can also be facilitated by introducing wellbeing budgeting. Internationally, in jurisdictions where a wellbeing approach has been introduced,  governments are required to clearly articulate specific social goals, match them with concrete targets and timelines, and publicly report on progress at set intervals. Adopting wellbeing budgeting in Victoria would assist the state to address risk factors for criminalisation at the population level.  

At the other end of the spectrum, we agree with the Committee’s findings that the period when a person leaves custody is challenging. Where there is a lack of support to reintegrate after a period of incarceration, this renders people vulnerable to homelessness, health, mental health and other crises and, in some circumstances, reoffending.  

The Committee makes sensible recommendations to increase funding to Corrections Victoria for pre-release planning prior to reintegration, and for community-based services to provide mental health, alcohol and other drug treatment, disability support, education and training, and culturally appropriate support, as well as reiterating support for the establishment of a “no exits into homelessness policy”, consistent with a key recommendation of the Committee’s Final Report of the Inquiry into Homelessness in Victoria.  

While increased funding for reintegration supports is critical, VCOSS also continues to support a recommendation by Coroner Hawkins that the Department of Health should have formal responsibility for improving the health outcomes of people leaving prison and should coordinate housing and other social supports (including Commonwealth funded supports such as the National Disability Insurance Scheme and Centrelink). This approach would ensure the continuity of care that is critical for successful reintegration and recovery.  

Some of the highlights:  

The Committee recommends to raise the minimum age of criminal responsibility to at least 14.  

We welcome support for this critical reform.  

The Committee notes that raising the minimum age of criminal responsibility is crucial to:  

• ensure that children who are too developmentally immature to be justly held responsible for offending are not criminalised  
• align Victoria with international norms and human rights standards  
• reduce the early engagement of children experiencing disadvantage with the criminal justice system and therefore their risk of further offending  
• help address the overrepresentation of Aboriginal children in the criminal justice system.  

The recommendation echoes that made by the former commissioner for Aboriginal Children and Young People in the Our Youth, Our Way report, and the findings reflect many years of sector advocacy, led by Smart Justice for Young People and the national Raise the Age campaign coalition.  

We welcome recommendation 11, which calls for greater investment in community-based services that respond to risk factors underlying children’s offending, including services that are culturally specific for Aboriginal children. Ensuring children can access therapeutic supports early is critical to preventing children’s involvement with the justice system.  

While we welcome this recommendation, we note that the Victorian Government has only committed – through the Meeting of Attorneys-General – to developing a proposal to raise the age of criminal responsibility from 10 to 12, in line with an agreement made at that meeting in November 2020. We agree with the Committee that not raising the minimum age to 14 is a missed opportunity to achieve the benefits the Committee has noted.  

The Committee acknowledges that women, Aboriginal people and people from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds are overrepresented in the criminal justice system, and recommends targeted interventions to address their unique risk factors.  

We note that in recommendations to address the overrepresentation of Aboriginal and culturally and linguistically diverse communities, the Committee has prioritised community-led and controlled approaches, which we welcome. 

Sector advocacy to address the overrepresentation of women in the criminal justice system is reflected in recommendation 13, to increase funding and support to social support providers offering therapeutic interventions for alcohol and other drug use, sexual abuse, violence and trauma to: 

• Expand their services to women voluntarily seeking help and reduce wait times to access services 
• Develop gender‑specific, trauma‑informed and culturally safe therapeutic services  
• Enhance connectivity, collaboration and referrals between social support providers 
• Ensure women are provided with long‑term holistic support by enhancing screening programs to ensure complex and multifaceted support needs are identified and addressed. 

Importantly, the Committee makes a recommendation to address the misidentification of female victim survivors of family violence as the primary aggressor in family violence matters. Currently, misidentification is leading to criminalisation, family separation, and withdrawal of support services. We welcome the Committee’s recommendation that all Victoria Police members undertake regular training in responding in family violence incidences, including the nuances of misidentification.  

Preventing the use of punitive responses to health and social issues  

The Committee acknowledges that criminalisation can occur due to Victoria Police regularly being called upon to assist people experiencing health and social issues, such as mental health crisis, homelessness, or behaviours associated with cognitive impairment or disability.  

VCOSS agrees with the Committee’s finding that Victoria Police are not trained or equipped to provide appropriate assistance in these circumstances. We welcome recommendations that the Committee has made to improve Police, court and custodial responses to matters involving persons with disability or cognitive impairment, including:  

• Reviewing disability policies, training and specialist roles, and capacity for members to refer to specialist support.  
• Improving access to the Independent Third Person Program (Victoria Police), the Intermediaries Program (courts) and specialist victim support services for people with disability. 
• Conducting a trial screening program that would assess all people entering custody (both on remand and sentenced) for physical, cognitive and intellectual disability, to inform reasonable adjustments and support in custody and on release. Screening for disability provides an important early intervention to engage community-based services as a more appropriate alternative to custody.  

We continue to support a recommendation first made by this Committee in the Final Report of the Inquiry into Homelessness in Victoria to develop and implement a protocol for Victoria Police and other enforcement agencies when responding to people experiencing homelessness, that prioritises a health and social response to people experiencing homelessness.    

However, while the Committee acknowledges that public order offences are also a contributing factor in the criminalisation of homelessness, no new recommendations to address this issue are made in the Final Report and the Committee instead anticipates the Government response to the Final Report of the Inquiry into Homelessness in Victoria.  

The Committee also looks to recommendation 10 of the Royal Commission into Victoria’s Mental Health System as the principal means by which to address the need for health system reforms to establish health-led emergency responses to people experiencing mental health crisis   

Other positive recommendations:  

• Recommendations 23, 24, 25 and 62, which all seek to increase the use and effectiveness of cautions and diversion, including facilitating access to appropriate community-based supports.  
• Recommendation 85: That the Department of Justice and Community Safety ensure that all incarcerated people – whether held on remand or serving a custodial sentence – in both publicly‑ and privately‑operated prisons, have access to forensic rehabilitation programs and supports which are aimed at addressing the factors underpinning their criminal behaviours. 
• Recommendation 48: That the Victorian Government redesign Victoria’s existing victim of crime services model in line with the model proposed in the Government‑commissioned Strengthening Victoria’s Victim Support System: Victim Services Review. This should be done in conjunction with the Committee’s additional recommendations around legal support and entitlements for victims of crime (Recommendation 44, 45 and 46). 

• Recommendation 57: That the Victorian Government consider amending the Residential Tenancies Act 1997 (Vic) to explicitly provide that a person cannot be evicted from a rental property for ‘illegal purposes’ if that person has not yet been convicted or sentenced. 
• Recommendation 61: That the Victorian Government continue to support the expansion of the Court Integrated Services Program to additional court locations including in rural and regional Victoria and increase funding to enable the program to meet increases in demand. 
• Recommendations 64, 65 and 66, which seek to expand on specialist courts including the Assessment and Referral Court, the Koorie Court and the Drug Court. 
• Recommendation 69, which seeks to increase uptake of community corrections orders for therapeutic outcomes.  
• Recommendation 71: That the Victorian Government amend the Sentencing Act 1991 (Vic) to require, for the purposes of sentencing, courts to take into consideration the unique systemic and background factors affecting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.  
• Recommendations 97 and 98, to establish a judicial recruitment process to ensure accountability, transparency and diversity amongst judicial officers.  

Some areas for further consideration:  

Critical housing and homelessness system reforms are yet to be delivered.  

The Committee note that many of the recommendations they made in the Final Report of the Inquiry into Homelessness in Victoria aimed at breaking the link between housing insecurity and justice involvement remain an urgent concern.  These include:  

• Adequate provision of transitional housing, housing support and legal assistance for people leaving custodial settings 

• Greater access to supported accommodation for people seeking bail  
• Adopting a “no exits into homelessness” policy for institutional settings including custody.  

These are important reforms that would protect people against homelessness when leaving custody and support people to reintegrate and recover from a custodial experience.  

However, while the Committee acknowledges that access to secure and affordable housing is part of an early intervention approach to reduce the risk of engagement with the criminal justice system, the Committee misses an opportunity to make additional recommendations that would support this approach – for example, we would have welcomed a recommendation to establish measures that can support a long-term pipeline of new social housing stock over ten years, leveraging Victoria’s nation-leading Big Housing Build, with a proportion of appropriate stock allocated for people at risk of or involved with the criminal justice system.  

A missed opportunity to reform harmful bail laws  

The Bail Act 1997(Vic) reforms introduced a reverse onus test, intended to capture serious, violence offenders. Instead, the changes have had a disproportionate impact on women who have engaged in low-level, non-violent offending, in particularly Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women, and people experiencing homelessness, and has resulting in an alarming increase in the number of people incarcerated on unsentenced remand.  

While the Committee recommends that the Victorian Government review the operation of the Bail Act (r 52), we think this recommendation does not go far enough.  

Consistent with a long-standing recommendation by the Victorian Law Reform Commission, our continued position is that the Victorian Government should repeal the reverse onus test and replace it with a presumption in favour of bail unless there is a specific and immediate risk to the safety of another person. 

For further information or to share your feedback, please contact: 

Deb Fewster 

Director Policy and Advocacy 

Email: Deborah.fewster@vcoss.org.au 

Karen Taranto  

Policy Advisor  

Email: karen.taranto@vcoss.org.au  

Introduction

A key focus of our work at VCOSS is to advocate for change that will enable Victorians to live a good life.  

Good lives are lived in strong, connected communities, where people have a safe and stable place to call home, timely access to health care and social support, the opportunity to participate in education, training and employment, and have agency over their own lives.

Strong communities lead to safe communities. If people experience social exclusion, inequality and disadvantage, and cannot access the support they need, they are at risk of engaging in antisocial or offending behaviours.

The Victorian Government has instituted many progressive social policy reforms that positively shift the dial for Victorians.  However, in the criminal justice space, a range of reforms unnecessarily criminalise or incarcerate people and entrench disadvantage and exclusion. The most notable example is the 2018 bail reforms that have driven an alarming increase in the number of people in prison on unsentenced remand.

The Legal and Social Issues Committee has a track record of contributing to progressive evidence-based policy reform in Victoria.  Prison has been found to be an ineffective and expensive way to respond to criminal behaviour or to keep communities safe. This Inquiry provides an opportunity to support transformational change by championing recommendations that address the root causes of offending.

Summary of recommendations

Acknowledge social justice as a key pillar of criminal justice

Protect Victorians against poverty

• Create pathways to employment for disadvantaged jobseekers, including people at risk of or who have been justice-involved. 
• Advocate to the Commonwealth Government to strengthen the social safety net, including:
  • An increase to the rate of JobSeeker from $44 per day to at least $65 per day and ongoing indexation of payments in line with wage movements at least twice per year. 
  • Reforms to the Fair Work Act 2009, to support Victorians to have a secure and decent living by improving protections for insecure and casual workers and independent contractors.

Eliminate disadvantage by shifting to a wellbeing economy and adopting justice reinvestment 

• Reorient Victoria to a wellbeing economy and embed this approach through the introduction of wellbeing budgeting and the delivery of wellbeing budgets. 
• Adopt a justice reinvestment framework that enables place-based pilot programs, coordinates funding and governance arrangements and builds shared evidence on effective practice.   

Prioritise the critical role of housing in preventing criminalisation and reoffending

• Build 60,000 new public and community homes by 2031 to ensure all Victorians have access to affordable and secure homes.
• Leverage housing as a protective factor against justice involvement by ensuring new public and community homes are accessible for people who at risk of or are justice-involved.  Specifically:
  • The Victorian Government’s investment in new public and community homes should deliver appropriately diverse stock (size, rooms, capacity to accommodate dependents, carers and other supports)
  • Housing and support should be provided separately so that renters can exercise choice and control. 
  • Consumer Affairs Victoria should work with community to establish a mechanism to monitor the implementation of reforms under the Residential Tenancies Act 1997 (Vic) and provide targeted supports to renters who experience barriers to exercising tenancy rights.
• Leverage the role of housing in reintegration and recovery after justice involvement by:
  • Establishing a “no exits into homelessness” policy from prison, youth justice and other justice settings, incorporating a housing first model of support.
  • Providing supported accommodation and court integrated services for people on bail and community corrections orders.
• Developing and implementing a protocol for Victoria Police and other enforcement agencies to prevent the criminalisation of people experiencing homelessness, per recommendation 29 of the Final Report of the Homelessness Inquiry.

Give people the health and social support they need in their communities

• Ensure community sector organisations have the capacity to deliver effective early intervention supports and the right supports that respond to people at risk of criminalisation or who have complex needs by:
  • Reflecting the true cost of service delivery in government contracts, including adequate annual funding indexation.
  • Providing more stable funding by increasing standard contract periods in community services to at least five years, and preferably seven years, in line with the recommendations of the Productivity Commission report on Human Services.  
  • Investing in workforce planning, resourcing and capability building.

Improve access to justice with early legal assistance

• Provide adequate funding to community legal centres to meet demand.
• Providing ongoing funding for effective integrated legal services and partnerships, including health-justice partnerships.

Address overrepresentation of women, people with disability, children and young people, First Nations people and victims of crime

• Women
  • Ensure community services are adequately resourced to prioritise early intervention and voluntary support to reduce the risk of criminalisation.
  • Resource community sector agencies to deliver supports that prioritise establishing trusted relationships with women seeking help, including training in trauma-informed and intersectional support and the need to overcome stigma and discrimination towards criminalised women.

• People with disabilities
  • Develop a comprehensive disability screening and data collection strategy, broken down by disability type, to apply to all people who encounter any stage of criminal justice system procedure (including police, courts and prison).
  • Complete and evaluate the Communication Intermediaries Pilot Program and consider making the program available in all courts.

• First Nations Peoples
  • Enable and empower Aboriginal families, communities, and organisations to address systemic overrepresentation in Victoria’s criminal justice system.

• Children and young people
  • Raise the minimum age of criminal responsibility to 14 in all circumstances
  • Make detention the option of last resort for all children and young people
  • Establish and resource an integrated support continuum that addresses the causes and risks associated with child offending
  • Enable and empower Aboriginal families, communities, and organisations to support children in culturally safe and appropriate ways.

• Victims of crime
  • Establish a more coherent Victim Support System and integrate Victim Support into existing community services.
  • Resource community legal centres to provide assistance to victims of crime with VOCAT matters. 

Reform the laws that are causing the most harm

• Encourage the use of discretion for low-level offending or bail offences.
• Encourage police and prosecutions to use diversion where possible.
• Make use of non-custodial options for low-level offending or bail offences.
• Base bail decision-making on a single test (that of, ‘unacceptable risk’).
• Reinstate the presumption that parole would be granted at the earliest eligibility date unless there was a compelling reason why this should not occur and require that the Adult Parole Board be more transparent and accountable in its decision-making.

Reduce the harms associated with justice system involvement

Make interactions with the justice system safe, respectful and accessible

• Embed safety, respect and inclusivity in justice system interactions by requiring all justice system personnel to undergo training in the following:
  • Trauma-informed practice
  • Disability awareness
  • Cultural awareness and safety
  • Identifying and responding to family violence
• Consult with the community to determine the need for a judicial diversity strategy to facilitate the appointment of judges, magistrates and tribunal members from diverse backgrounds, including gender and cultural and linguistic diversity, varied lived experiences and from diverse legal practices, including the community legal sector.  

Prioritise the health and safety of all Victorians in police practice

• Commit to the adoption and implementation of a health-based, harm-minimisation response to drug use.
• Increase Victoria Police members’ knowledge of local service networks to undertake warm referrals and continue to improve the use of PACER and the Victoria Police e-Referral Program (VPer) for referrals to local service providers.   
• Establish an independent body to hear complaints and investigate police misconduct.

Create more problem-solving and diversionary courts

• Continue to establish problem-solving, specialist and diversionary courts across Victoria, using data to prioritise responses in areas of most need.

Ensure people leave prison for good

• Produce publicly available information on the health and social outcomes of people who enter and leave prison, that links service use data from Department of Health, Department of Families, Fairness and Housing, Department of Justice and Community Safety, and Corrections Victoria.
• Improve the interface between the National Disability Insurance Scheme and Corrections Victoria.to ensure people with disabilities can access appropriate and continuous supports.
• Improve the interface between forensic and community based mental health and alcohol and other drug treatment to ensure continuity of care.
• Establish a prison exit program that comprises a whole-of-government approach, led by Department of Health, to providing sustained supports for people returning to the community from prison.

Acknowledge social justice as a key pillar of criminal justice

Victoria’s justice system is built around equal principles of deterrence, rehabilitation, punishment, and community safety. However, a law and order, tough on crime rhetoric fuelled by media has seen successive governments implement criminal justice system reforms that rely on punitive responses to antisocial behaviours and offending. The most stark example of this is our ever-increasing incarceration rate (see table below).

The overreliance on punishment is a narrow conception of justice and as the Victorian Ombudsman stated in 2015, prison is an ineffective and expensive way to respond to criminal behaviour or to keep communities safe.[1]

Instead, social justice principles should be used to guide criminal justice system reform. The concept of social justice acknowledges that individuals are embedded in, and shaped by, their social environment. If social inequality and exclusion drive people to engage in antisocial or offending behaviours, then a collective, whole-of-government and community response is required to prevent crime, and to intervene early to prevent further harm.

Protect Victorians against poverty

Recommendations

• Create pathways to employment for disadvantaged jobseekers, including people at risk of or who have been justice-involved. 
• Advocate to the Commonwealth Government to strengthen the social safety net, including:

• An increase to the rate of JobSeeker from $44 per day to at least $65 per day and ongoing indexation of payments in line with wage movements at least twice per year.  
• Reforms to the Fair Work Act 2009, to support Victorians to have a secure and decent living by improving protections for insecure and casual workers and independent contractors.

Social inequality and exclusion, in the form of social, economic or intergenerational disadvantage, limited education and employment opportunities and poor health and wellbeing, is a risk factor for antisocial and offending behaviours.  Eliminating social exclusion requires intervention at the population, community and neighbourhood levels.

Poverty is the most stark example of social inequality. Thirteen (13) per cent of Victorians currently live in poverty.[2] Poverty exists in every Victorian community, with rates highest in regional and rural Victoria. Poverty stops people living healthy and happy lives. It can lead to isolation, to children disengaging from school, and to poor physical and mental health.

At the population level, having an adequate income is a critical protection against poverty. Our national safety net is currently failing to provide that protection.  For example, Victorians reliant on the base rate of the JobSeeker income support payment live well below the poverty line. – For example, a single person without children is $166 per fortnight under the poverty line.

Another critical protection against poverty is secure work. Employment participation contributes to individual and community well-being. Stable paid employment provides people with an income and contributes to their sense of identity and wellbeing. It enables people to put a roof over their head and pay for food, transportation, clothing, energy, childcare, health care, and access to information technology. 

Not every Victorian has the security of stable employment. There are high rates of unemployment and underemployment concentrated in some groups, including young people, people who have been early school leavers, Aboriginal people, people with disabilities, people from culturally and linguistically diverse communities, people with enduring health issues (including drug and alcohol or chronic health conditions), and people who have a criminal record.

VCOSS considers that creating pathways to participation for disadvantaged jobseekers is a key element of effective prevention, early intervention and reintegration.

The Victorian Government is already playing an important role through Jobs Victoria. The investment in new non-punitive, place-based supply-side measures – for example, mentors, advocates and counsellors – is already supporting many disadvantaged jobseekers into work, including Victorians who have had justice-system involvement.

Additionally, through the Jobs Victoria Fund, a successor to the Working for Victoria Fund, DJPR is continuing to invest in demand-side measures, through the provision of targeted, tiered wage subsidies to employers (albeit at a significantly lower rate of subsidy than Working for Victoria).

VCOSS urges sustained Victorian Government investment in employment support for disadvantaged jobseekers and initiatives that support the creation of high-quality jobs.

For those in work, the Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth) is the most prominent lever to strengthen employment protections for all workers. Significant reforms are needed to ensure that all workers in Australia can access the minimum employment rights to ensure that they can not only meet their basic needs but can flourish and fully participate in life.[3]

The pandemic has reinforced that minimum employment entitlements benefit not just individuals, but the whole community. The Victorian Government can advocate that the Commonwealth reform the Fair Work Act 2009 to improve protections for insecure and casual workers and independent contractors.

Eliminate disadvantage by shifting to a wellbeing economy and adopting justice reinvestment  

Recommendations

• Reorient Victoria to a wellbeing economy and embed this approach through the introduction of wellbeing budgeting and the delivery of wellbeing budgets. 
• Adopt a justice reinvestment framework that enables place-based pilot programs, coordinates funding and governance arrangements and builds shared evidence on effective practice.  

Victoria can also take steps to eliminate social inequality and exclusion by reorienting the state’s economy to a wellbeing economy. In broad terms, wellbeing economies put the pursuit of key social outcomes – like delivering the basic needs for food, housing, health, safety and a good education – on par with the pursuit of good balance sheets. Governments are required to clearly articulate specific social goals and match them with concrete targets and timelines, then publicly report on progress at set intervals.  These are embedded through the delivery of wellbeing budgets.

Justice reinvestment is a proven approach to tackling community and neighbourhood level disadvantage that is highly compatible with wellbeing budgeting.  Justice reinvestment involves re-directing resources that would normally be spent on prisons towards local, community-based initiatives that prevent people from engaging in offending behaviours. A justice reinvestment approach uses data to identify need and provides local communities with the resources, time and space to come together and build resilience and cohesion to make the local area safer, smarter and healthier.

The Maranguka Justice Reinvestment Project in Bourke, New South Wales, is one of the most successful examples of justice reinvestment. Historically, the town has had crime rates well above the NSW average, and consistently experiences the highest recorded crime rates in NSW for domestic violence, sexual assault and breach of bail.

An evaluation conducted after five years found that incidences of domestic violence had dropped by about a quarter and reoffending had reduced. A third more young people are finishing high school. Other results include:

• a 38% reduction in charges across the top five juvenile offence categories
• a 14% reduction in bail breaches
• a 42% reduction in days spent in custody.[4]

The Victorian Government should work with communities to identify areas of need in Victoria where a justice reinvestment pilot would be effective. To help guide this work, and ensure the efficient and equitable use of resources, the Government should establish a justice reinvestment framework.  As well as coordinating funding and providing a foundation for strong governance arrangements, the framework would be an enabler for building shared evidence on effective practice.  

Prioritise the critical role of housing in preventing criminalisation and reoffending

Recommendations

• Build 60,000 new public and community homes by 2031 to ensure all Victorians have access to affordable and secure homes.
• Leverage housing as a protective factor against justice involvement by ensuring new public and community homes are accessible for people who at risk of or are justice-involved.  Specifically:

• The Victorian Government’s investment in new public and community homes should deliver appropriately diverse stock (size, rooms, capacity to accommodate dependents, carers and other supports).
• Housing and support should be provided separately so that renters can exercise choice and control.  
• Consumer Affairs Victoria should work with community to establish a mechanism to monitor the implementation of reforms under the Residential Tenancies Act 1997 (Vic) and provide targeted supports to renters who experience barriers to exercising tenancy rights.

• Leverage the role of housing in reintegration and recovery after justice involvement by:

• Establishing a “no exits into homelessness” policy from prison, youth justice and other justice settings, incorporating a housing first model of support.
• Providing supported accommodation and court integrated services for people on bail and community corrections orders.

• Developing and implementing a protocol for Victoria Police and other enforcement agencies to prevent the criminalisation of people experiencing homelessness, per recommendation 29 of the Final Report of the Homelessness Inquiry.

Safe, stable and affordable housing plays a critical role in preventing contact with the criminal justice system, reducing contact with the criminal justice system and supporting successful reintegration for people following contact with the justice system.

As VCOSS told this Committee in the Inquiry into Homelessness in Victoria:

• People experiencing homelessness, particularly people sleeping rough, are subject to punitive, enforcement-based responses to their circumstances. This includes fines and charges for public space offences, such as begging, camping and conduct in public spaces, including on public transport. 
• Justice system involvement is a driver of homelessness. Imprisonment affects people’s ability to maintain their housing. Preventing people from imprisonment enables them to sustain their housing, continue engagement with health and social services, and stay connected to their natural supports in their communities.
• In the absence of a ‘no exits into homelessness’ policy, more than half (54 per cent) of people leaving prison exit without stable housing in place.[5]  This contributes to the revolving door between prison and crisis homelessness services, and long-term, entrenched homelessness.

The Victorian Government’s Big Housing Build is a welcome and much needed investment in social and affordable housing. However, most of the growth in this program is through community housing, which may not be accessible to people who are justice-involved or who have been criminalised.

To ensure that housing is provided for those most in need, VCOSS recommended that the Victorian Government invest in a pipeline of new social housing stock, comprising both public and community housing, under the yet to be finalised Ten Year Strategy for Social and Affordable Housing.

Further, the Victorian Government should consider additional support and resources required for community housing providers to make allocations to people who are justice-involved or who have been criminalised. The Victorian Government can facilitate this by quarantining a portion of future stock for people involved in the justice system and by inviting bids from or incentivising the community housing sector to deliver specialist housing.

All new public and community homes should be designed to prioritise safety (including cultural safety and freedom from violence), and be made accessible, with appropriate space to accommodate children/dependents and/or the provision of necessary supports. For people who have been criminalised, it is necessary for housing and support to be provided separately to ensure that people can exercise choice and control over their own life, without their housing provider having an undue level of influence (for example, VCOSS members note poor outcomes for people they support when Corrections Victoria is both the housing and support provider).  

A third of all Victorians rent homes in the private market, including many who would be eligible for public and community housing but who do not have access due to supply constraints. People who are at risk of, or who have experienced, justice involvement face unique challenges in the private market, including unaffordability, poor quality or unsuitable homes, and stigma and discrimination, and may face challenges with meeting their tenancy obligations that place them at risk of eviction.

An ambitious suite of renting law reforms commenced in March this year, which make renting fairer through changes including more secure tenure and protections against evictions. The Victorian Government should work with community to establish a mechanism to monitor implementation of the reforms and consider any additional protections or supports that might be required to ensure people who are justice involved can maintain private rental housing.

Give people the health and social support they need in their communities

Recommendations

Ensure community sector organisations have the capacity to deliver effective early intervention supports and the right supports that respond to people at risk of criminalisation or who have complex needs by:

• Reflecting the true cost of service delivery in government contracts, including adequate annual funding indexation.
• Providing more stable funding by increasing standard contract periods in community services to at least five years, and preferably seven years, in line with the recommendations of the Productivity Commission report on Human Services.   
• Investing in workforce planning, resourcing and capability building.

As the Victorian Ombudsman noted in a 2015 investigation, there is a clear link between disadvantage and justice system involvement.[6]

This investigation, along with a growing body of research in recent years, highlights that people who become justice involved or criminalised often face a range of health and social issues that may not be identified, or, if identified, have not been treated,[7] when they encounter the justice system. For example:

• 40 per cent of people entering prison reported mental ill-health.[8] Due to the capacity constraints of the community based mental health system, prison is often the first time a person identifies and is treated for mental illness.
• 65 per cent reported using illicit drugs in the previous year.[9] People who use drugs experience significant barriers to accessing voluntary treatment due a lack of capacity and coordination between supports provided in community versus in the corrections system.
• A third of people entering prison had a high-school education level of year 9 or lower.[10]
• A third reported a chronic health condition that affected participation in daily activities, while almost half reported moderate disability.[11] Further, the Victorian Ombudsman identified people with cognitive disabilities as an overrepresented cohort in Victoria’s prisons.[12]
• A third of people entering prison had been homeless in the last month, while more than half expected to be homeless when released.[13]
• 75 per cent of people in prison had been in before, which reiterates concerns that prison has limited efficacy and impact in relation to rehabilitation.[14] 

Providing the support people need early in their communities is a critical way to prevent people from becoming involved in the justice system. At a workshop to inform this submission, VCOSS members noted the following features of effective early intervention practice when working with people who have been criminalised or who have complex, co-occurring needs:

• Build relationships of trust.
• Collaborate across a range of services, including with police.
• Provide support that responds holistically to the person’s intersecting needs, including considerations of their family and social environments.
• Embed cultural awareness and safety and trauma-informed practice.
• Acknowledge and seek to reduce stigma and discrimination.
• Use peer/lived experience workforces to provide supports.

However, due to short-term and precarious funding, as well as disruptions arising from critical but sometimes uncoordinated sector reforms, workers and agencies may not have capacity to deliver supports that prioritise these features. As a consequence, people face barriers getting the support they need at the earliest opportunity, and may instead only access support when facing crisis, or critically, never access support before becoming justice-involved. The Victorian Government can effect transformational change by providing fairer funding and longer-term contracts, as well as enhancing the way concurrent, intersecting flagship reforms are implemented.  There is an opportunity for enhanced coordination and integration of key reforms.  

Noting that many people currently involved in Victoria’s criminal justice system present with mental health and AOD issues, Government must address barriers to accessing community-based mental health and AOD support.

As this Committee noted in the Inquiry into the Use of Cannabis in Victoria, the AOD sector is underfunded and faces significant workforce shortages.[15] Despite the crossover between the AOD and the mental health service systems, the two systems are uncoordinated, which creates issues for services users. VCOSS welcomes the Victorian Government’s commitment to establish a state-wide mental health and AOD service to promote clinical cooperation between the two systems. However, with significant investment already committed to reform the mental health system in line with the recommendations of the Royal Commission into Victoria’s Mental Health System, the Victorian Government will need to undertake robust modelling of AOD service demand, and plan and resource services to address workforce issues that may arise with mental health system reform.

Improve access to justice with early legal assistance

Recommendations

• Provide adequate funding to community legal centres to meet demand.
• Providing ongoing funding for effective integrated legal services and partnerships, including health-justice partnerships.

People most vulnerable to legal problems often have fewer skills and resources to deal with them without assistance. Targeted legal assistance, delivered at the right time and the earliest possible opportunity, can help resolve problems that can otherwise escalate, leading to more problems, greater disadvantage and higher costs.

Community justice partnerships put lawyers into places where people can access them easily during their everyday lives, such as community health services, family violence services or schools. People experiencing legal problems are more likely to confide in a GP, a social worker or their teacher than go to a lawyer.

Embedding lawyers in community settings gives people a chance to address their legal needs before they spiral out of control. It means non-legal professionals receiving information from someone can work with lawyers to jointly address that person’s needs.

Community legal centres have experienced a surge in demand since the start of the pandemic, at the same time as courts are experiencing significant backlogs in hearing matters. The Victorian Government should work with the community legal sector to model future demand and fund the sector to meet this demand. Further, per the recommendations of the Access to Justice Review, the Victorian Government should provide ongoing funding for integrated legal and non-legal supports, to address service gaps and silos, and ensure Victorians can access more effective legal help.

Address overrepresentation of women, people with disability, children and young people, First Nations people and victims of crime

Women

recommendations

• Ensure community services are adequately resourced to prioritise early intervention and voluntary support to reduce the risk of criminalisation.
• Resource community sector agencies to deliver supports that prioritise establishing trusted relationships with women seeking help, including training in trauma-informed and intersectional support and the need to overcome stigma and discrimination towards criminalised women.

A majority of women who become justice-involved have experienced trauma, including childhood and adult victimiisation, sexual abuse, involvement with child protection, and family violence.[16]

These experiences of gendered violence can drive women to engage in offending behaviour, for example, self-medicating with illicit drugs or resisting violence through physical force, resulting inand being misidentified as the predominant aggressor. These experiences place women at risk of criminalisation and create barriers to accessing services that can respond to trauma or complex needs.[17]

While the implementation of the Royal Commission into Family Violence recommendations have improved both specialist and mainstream services responses to victim survivors of family violence, there is a need for increased resourcing of primary prevention and long-term recovery supports.

Further to these recommendations, VCOSS is a member of the Smart Justice for Women Coalition and we endorse the recommendations it has made to this Inquiry to address the overrepresentation of women in Victoria’s criminal justice system.

People with disabilities

Recommendations

• Develop a comprehensive disability screening and data collection strategy, broken down by disability type, to apply to all people who encounter any stage of criminal justice system procedure (including police, courts and prison).
• Complete and evaluate the Communication Intermediaries Pilot Program and consider making the program available in all courts.

People with disabilities are overrepresented in the criminal justice system, as victims, accused persons, defendants and witnesses.

The Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability heard that overrepresentation can be attributed to issues including:

• limited access to appropriate support services and housing
• lack of disability awareness and identification by services and institutions
• early life factors
• historical trauma
• recidivism
• lack of diversionary options
• barriers to access to justice and
• barriers to reporting and investigating violence, abuse, neglect and exploitation.

People with disabilities also experience the “criminalisation of disability”, when conduct associated with people’s impairment, health condition or trauma are interpreted as difficult or defiant behaviours, leading to disproportionate interactions with police.[18]

Currently, there is no consistent approach to screening for people with disabilities at any stage of criminal procedure. Implementing a systemic approach to disability screening would inform more appropriate responses in policing, courts and prison. In particular, screening for disability provides an opportunity to engage community-based services as a more appropriate alternative to custody.[19]

The Victorian Government has implemented a Communication Intermediaries Pilot Program trial to assist victims of crime and witnesses with communication difficulties to give evidence to police and in court. While there have been some constraints with implementing this program remotely during the COVID-19 restrictions, Government should commit to completing the trial, and consider making the program available in all courts if successful.

First Nations Peoples

recommendations

• Enable and empower Aboriginal families, communities, and organisations to address systemic overrepresentation in Victoria’s criminal justice system.

Victoria Police are reluctant to collect and release data on policing practices between different cultural or linguistically diverse groups.[20] Despite this, a significant body of evidence indicates that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are less likely to be provided with opportunities for diversion[21], more likely to be charged with public nuisance offences[22] and more likely to be targeted for offences such as being drunk in a public place[23].

A commitment to addressing systemic racism and ending impunity is crucial for moving towards a more just, equal and safe future for everyone. Discrimination and racism in policing practices, particularly in relation to, must be acknowledged and immediately addressed, and any reforms must be led by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities.

Children and young people

Recommendations

• Raise the minimum age of criminal responsibility to 14 in all circumstances
• Make detention the option of last resort for all children and young people
• Establish and resource an integrated support continuum that addresses the causes and risks associated with child offending
• Enable and empower Aboriginal families, communities, and organisations to support children in culturally safe and appropriate ways.

Currently, children as young as 10 can and do experience the full force of the criminal justice system.

When a child demonstrates anti-social or offending behaviour, an opportunity emerges for appropriate social supports to make a positive intervention in their life. Responses to child offending should:

• Be child-centred, strengths based and trauma-informed. This includes responding to the holistic needs of the child, the underlying causes of their offending, and the needs of their family/natural supports;
• Comply with Australia’s international human rights obligations and the Victorian Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities;
• Assume shared accountability and responsibility for offending, on the basis that the majority of child offending is a consequence of the failings of the institutions intended to support the child;
• Commit to addressing the overrepresentation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island children and young people, Culturally and Linguistically Diverse children and young people, and young people who have been involved with out-of-home care.

Supports should be provided across an integrated continuum, prioritising and investing in prevention, early intervention and therapeutic and restorative justice as the most effective ways to respond to child and young offending/re-offending.

VCOSS believes that a system-wide response is required to tackle the systemic failings which underpin children’s involvement in the justice system. There is a need to better integrate policies and practices across child and family welfare, education, disability, health, police, legal and youth justice systems. Community should be involved in design and implementation, including Aboriginal and culturally diverse communities. This would increase the effectiveness of interventions by addressing community-identified problems, drawing on existing community strengths and resources, and being culturally responsive.[24]

Reorienting responses to child offending from punitive to therapeutic will require a significant boost in funding for effective programs. This can be achieved by adopting a framework that ensures equitable funding for programs across the continuum and better integration between systems. Presently, a significant barrier to protecting children from offending and reoffending is the lack of access to an appropriate program that meets their needs and is a proportionate response to the nature of their offending behaviour.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children are over-imprisoned, making up about 60 per cent of the young children in youth justice facilities, despite being only about 5 per cent of the population (aged 10-17).[25] Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples continue to experience the ongoing impacts of colonisation, trauma, dispossession and racism. The over-incarceration of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and young people is both a result of this ongoing trauma and exacerbates it.

In Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, the planning, design and implementation of alternative justice responses should be community-led.

Further to our recommendations, VCOSS is a member of the Smart Justice for Young People Coalition and we endorse the recommendations it has made to this Inquiry to address the overrepresentation of children and young people in Victoria’s criminal justice system.

Victims of crime

Recommendations

• Establish a more coherent Victim Support System and integrate Victim Support into existing community services.
• Resource community legal centres to provide assistance to victims of crime with VOCAT matters. 

A 2012 literature review on the ‘victim-offender overlap’ identified studies reporting that more than half of victims of crime become offenders and vice versa.[26] This is a higher rate for women in the justice system, where between 70 to 90 per cent of women in prison are victim-survivors of family violence, sexual abuse or child abuse.

Supporting victims to recover in a way that is therapeutic and does not contribute to further trauma can prevent victims from becoming perpetrators.

Since the 2018 review of the Victims of Crime Assistance Act, some improvements have been made to victim support, including the establishment of a welcome new financial assistance scheme. However, victims continue to experience barriers to accessing support, due to the complexity in navigating the range of assistance options available.  

As the Centre for Innovative Justice noted in their Victim Services Review, victims of crime should be supported to find and access assistance and be empowered to make informed decisions about which assistance would meet their needs. This could be achieved by establishing a more coherent and effective Victim Support System, comprising coordination of existing victim services into a single model that victims can step through as their needs change over time, as well as improved access through digital service delivery and improved integration of victim assistance in existing community services, [27] including community legal centres.

Reform the laws that are causing the most harm

Recommendations

• Encourage the use of discretion for low-level offending or bail offences.
• Encourage police and prosecutions to use diversion where possible.
• Make use of non-custodial options for low-level offending or bail offences.
• Base bail decision-making on a single test (that of, ‘unacceptable risk’).
• Reinstate the presumption that parole would be granted at the earliest eligibility date unless there was a compelling reason why this should not occur and require that the Adult Parole Board be more transparent and accountable in its decision-making.

Over the past decade, a range of reforms to Victoria’s criminal law have been implemented that increase punitive approaches to offending and restrict judicial discretion:

• A significant investment of $2 billion in police has led to an additional 3,135 police officers over five years[28]
• In 2013 and 2018, changes to the Bail Act 1977 (Vic) created significant barriers to accessing bail.
• Successive changes to sentencing have increasingly restricted judicial discretion and increased sentences of imprisonment, including an increase in mandatory sentencing and less community-based approaches
• Parole reforms have made it increasingly difficult for offenders to be granted parole.  

These reforms have not made our community safer. The Bail Act 1997(Vic) reforms introduced a reverse onus test, intended to capture serious, violence offenders. Instead, the changes have had a disproportionate impact on women who have engaged in low-level, non-violent offending, in particularly Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women, and people experiencing homelessness, and has resulting in the alarming increase in the number of people incarcerated on unsentenced remand. Consistent with a long-standing recommendation by the Victorian Law Reform Commission, the Victorian Government should repeal the reverse onus test and replace it with a presumption in favour of bail unless there is a specific and immediate risk to the safety of another person.

Rehabilitation should be prioritised as the primary factor for any sentencing decision. The sentencing hierarchy should also be reviewed to provide additional options for community-based treated and rehabilitation. VCOSS supports the recommendation by the Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service (VALS) for a new requirement that courts take into consideration the unique systemic and background factors affecting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

The Victorian Government should reinstate the presumption that parole would be granted at the earliest eligibility date unless there was a compelling reason why this should not occur. Further, Adult Parole Board decisions should be more transparent and subject to public accountability.

Reduce the harms associated with justice system involvement

The criminogenic effects and other long-term trauma and disadvantage associated with justice system involvement is well documented.

Until prevention and early intervention are prioritised and adequately resourced, change will be required to reduce harm for those that do encounter the criminal justice system. We acknowledge the inherent tension between therapeutic approaches and the carceral nature of the criminal justice system. Despite this, steps can be taken to make contact with the justice system a more positive and less harmful intervention in people’s lives.

Make interactions with the justice system safe, respectful and accessible

Recommendations

• Embed safety, respect and inclusivity in justice system interactions by requiring all justice system personnel to undergo training in the following:

• Trauma-informed practice
• Disability awareness
• Cultural awareness and safety
• Identifying and responding to family violence

• Consult with the community to determine the need for a judicial diversity strategy to facilitate the appointment of judges, magistrates and tribunal members from diverse backgrounds, including gender and cultural and linguistic diversity, varied lived experiences and from diverse legal practices, including the community legal sector.  

As previously discussed, many people who encounter the justice system have experienced disadvantage, vulnerability and trauma. All criminal justice system personnel – including police, courts and service providers – must have capability to provide safe and respectful responses to those they interact with.  

The Blue Knot Foundation suggests that trauma-informed practice could be incorporated into the justice system by ensuring all personnel have training to apply the following core principles[29]:

1. Basic knowledge of the impacts of stress on the brain and body.
2. Consistent emphasis on safety, trustworthiness, choice, collaboration and empowerment (emphasis on doing with rather than for or to).
3. Consistent emphasis on the way in which a service is provided (i.e. the `how’ as much as the `what’; the context in which services are delivered, not just what the service is).
4. Consistent emphasis on what may have happened to a client, rather than what is `wrong’ with client/s.
5. Recognition that `difficult’ behaviour and/or `symptoms’ may be the product of coping mechanisms and attempted self-protection in light of prior adverse experiences. If not seen through the lens of trauma, client behaviour is `often and inappropriately labelled as pathological, when [it] should instead be viewed as adaptations a person has had to make in order to cope with life’s circumstances’.
6. A `strengths-based’ approach which acknowledges people’s skills, notwithstanding the enormity and effects of overwhelming experiences with which they may be struggling (`Recognising and promoting resilience is also a fundamental component of effective trauma-informed work’).

Additionally, justice system personnel should be required to regularly undertake training in:

• Disability awareness
• Cultural awareness and safety
• Identifying and responding to family violence.

Community organisations have deep and broad knowledge of the challenges and barriers faced by people who may be vulnerable or experiencing disadvantage and justice-involved, and have established, trusted relationships with community. We stand ready to assist justice system workforces to develop their skills in this area. 

The capacity of judges and magistrates to ensure fair hearing and safety for alleged offenders can also be improved by establishing a judicial diversity strategy, as the UK recently introduced.

As the former High Court Justice Michael McHugh said – “when a court is socially and culturally homogenous, it is less likely to command public confidence in the impartiality of the institution.”[30] 

There is strong interest amongst VCOSS members in the Victorian Government  developing a strategy to increase diversity amongst judges and magistrates – including cultural and linguistic diversity, a range of gender identities, diversity of lived experience and personal background, and diversity of legal experience, especially by appointing more judges and magistrates from the community legal sector – to increase trust in the institution, and to ensure differing perspectives across the system.  VCOSS encourages the Victorian Government to consider this positive proposal, and to explore it further with communities through a public consultation process.

Prioritise the health and safety of all Victorians in police practice

Recommendations

• Commit to the adoption and implementation of a health-based, harm-minimisation response to drug use.
• Increase Victoria Police members’ knowledge of local service networks to undertake warm referrals and continue to improve the use of PACER and the Victoria Police e-Referral Program (VPer) for referrals to local service providers.   
• Establish an independent body to hear complaints and investigate police misconduct.

The criminalisation of people who are vulnerable or disadvantaged is inextricably linked to police practice.

The decriminalisation of public drunkenness and the implementation of a new health-based model demonstrates an approach that prioritises the health and safety of Victorians and is a welcome shift away from a reliance on punitive, police-led responses. The Victorian Government should commit to the adoption and implementation of a health-based, harm-minimisation response to drug use, and explore further opportunities for drug decriminalisation.

Victoria Police can also incorporate more community policing approaches into police practice, including establishing better connections with local community organisations.[31] For example, VCOSS members acknowledge good outcomes for community when police use the Police, Ambulance and Clinical Early Response (PACER) model in first responses. In this model, police have wide discretion to draw on clinicians – including social workers, lawyers and advocates – when first attending callouts for incidences involving public nuisance, drug and alcohol use and mental health episodes. However, our members note that due to this wide discretion, there are inconsistencies in the use of the model. Itrelies greatly on individual police members’ relationships with local service providers.

Victoria Police members should be required to increase their knowledge of and relationships with local service providers. Further, they should make better use of models like PACER and increase their use of both warm referrals and e-referrals to engage services providers in their responses.

Without adequate training to engage with vulnerable members of the community (as discussed in the previous section), poor justice outcomes may emerge for those who are subject to over-policing and misuse of police power. Police who do abuse the trust of Victorians and undermine the integrity of the justice system must be held accountable. Existing accountability mechanisms are failing to change systemic behaviour or build community confidence in police. The Victorian Government should implement a system of independent investigation of police misconduct.

Create more problem-solving and diversionary courts

Recommendations

• Continue to establish problem-solving, specialist and diversionary courts across Victoria, using data to prioritise responses in areas of most need.

The Victorian Government can invest in more specialist problem-solving and diversionary courts to reduce crime and prisoner numbers. Where traditional, adversarial approaches fail, problem-solving courts deal with the behaviours causing offending, and they work: Drug Court recidivism rates are 34 per cent lower.[32] The Victorian Drug Court should be expanded to keep people out of prison through treatment and rehabilitation.  Similarly, the Neighbourhood Justice Centre has significantly improved community order compliance and reduced recidivism.[33] Offenders appearing before the Neighbourhood Justice Centre (NJC) are less likely to reoffend and has cut Yarra area crime rates by 12 per cent in two years.

The establishment of the Specialist Family Violence Court in Shepparton and the expansion of the Drug Court to Shepparton and Ballarat are welcome initiatives to ensure access to justice and problem-solving approaches for regional and rural Victorians. 

The Victorian Government can use data and population health planning to prioritise responses in areas across Victoria with most need. For example, despite having one of the highest rates of family violence in Melbourne, there is not a Family Violence Court in or near Broadmeadows. Data-driven planning would also inform the resourcing and integration of specific community services that would assist the Court response.

Ensure people leave prison for good

Recommendations

• Produce publicly available information on the health and social outcomes of people who enter and leave prison, that links service use data from Department of Health, Department of Families, Fairness and Housing, Department of Justice and Community Safety, and Corrections Victoria.
• Improve the interface between the National Disability Insurance Scheme and Corrections Victoria.to ensure people with disabilities can access appropriate and continuous supports.
• Improve the interface between forensic and community based mental health and alcohol and other drug treatment to ensure continuity of care.
• Establish a prison exit program that comprises a whole-of-government approach, led by Department of Health, to providing sustained supports for people returning to the community from prison.

The current approach to managing people exiting prison means that people who leave prison are punished well beyond their sentence. This is indicated by:

• Over half of people leaving prison expect to be homeless when released
• 90 people who died of heroin overdose in 2017 had recently left prison (including 10 within the first seven days of release)
• Children of people who have been incarcerated are six times more likely to become incarcerated than their peers.

Better outcomes for people leaving prison begins with access to appropriate health and social supports in prison. Currently, there is no publicly available, linked data on people who move through Victoria’s prisons, which constrains efforts to make system improvements. As Coroner Hawkins recommended in a recent investigation,[34] the Victorian Government should make this data available to support reform.

Despite a high prevalence of people with disabilities in Victoria’s prisons, there are barriers to accessing the National Disability Insurance Scheme and necessary disability supports. The Victorian Government should improve the interface between the NDIS and justice system across Victorian prisons, and better co-ordinate and integrate service systems to ensure all people with disability are fully supported while in prison and when transitioning out of prison.

Further, the Government should develop a protocol to identify whether people entering prison are NDIS participants, or are potentially eligible to be participants, and facilitate access requests at the earliest opportunity, in partnership with the Commonwealth government and NDIA.

Corrections Victoria offer a range of transitional planning and support programs, including through Assessment and Transition Coordinators and the ReLink, ReConnect and ReStart programs. These programs provide vital transitional planning and support to people exiting prison and provide an opportunity to understand and map a person’s needs in relation to housing and other supports upon release.

However, only 20 per cent of people leaving prison have access to any supports from Corrections Victoria pre- and post-release.[35]  Further, there are significant gaps in discharge planning, support and continuity of care when people are released that prevent successful reintegration and recovery.

In Norway, people leaving prison are provided with a range of supports under the “Reintegration Guarantee”, which includes support to obtain housing, work, school, health care debt counselling, and includes a framework to coordinate all government and community stakeholders involved in providing supports.[36] The success of this model is demonstrated by their status of having one of the lowest recidivism rates in the world, at 20 per cent,[37] compared to 44 per cent in Victoria.[38]

The Victorian Government should establish a program modelled on the Norwegian “Reintegration Guarantee”, that incorporates the following principles:

• Planning for release should begin long before leaving prison
• Housing must be a key component of prison transition, using a Housing First approach (a Housing First approach ensures that housing provision is not conditional upon addressing other health and well-being issues. Engagement with support services cannot be a pre-requisite to maintaining housing).
• Supports must be sustained (at stepped levels of intensity depending on changing needs over time) to enable reintegration and recovery
• A range of therapeutic and practical supports should be provided, targeted to meet the specific needs of the person

VCOSS supports Coroner Hawkins’ recommendation that the Department of Health adopt formal responsibility for improving the health outcomes of people leaving prison and should coordinate housing and other social supports with Department of Families, Fairness and Housing.   

[1] Victorian Ombudsman, Investigation into the Rehabilitation and Reintegration of Prisoners in Victoria, September 2015, p 2.

[2] VCOSS, Every suburb, every town: mapping poverty in Victoria, November 2018

[3] VCOSS, A secure and decent living – VCOSS Submission to the Senate Inquiry into Job Security, April 2022.

[4] KPMG, Maranguka Justice Reinvestment Project – Impact assessment, November 2018.

[5] Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, The health of Australia’s prisoners 2018, May 2019, p viii.

[6] Victorian Ombudsman, Investigation into the rehabilitation and reintegration of prisoners in Victoria, September 2015, p 2.

[7] Royal Commission into Victoria’s Mental Health System, Final Report Volume 1: A new approach to mental health and wellbeing in Victoria, February 2021, p 355.  

[8] Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, The health of Australia’s prisoners 2018, May 2019, p vi.

[9] Ibid p vii.

[10] Ibid p vii.

[11] Ibid p 77.

[12] Victorian Ombudsman, Investigation into the rehabilitation and reintegration of prisoners in Victoria, September 2015, p87.

[13] Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, The health of Australia’s prisoners 2018, May 2019, p viii.

[14] Ibid, p vi.

[15] Parliament of Victoria, Inquiry into the use of Cannabis in Victoria – Final Report, August 2021, p 78.

[16] Centre for Innovative Justice, Leaving Custody Behind – Issues Paper, July 2021, p 23.

[17] Ibid, p 24.

[18] Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability, Overview of responses to the Criminal Justice System Issues Paper, December 2020, p 3.

[19] Australian Human Rights Commission, People with disability and the criminal Justice System, 20 March 2020, p 30.

[20] M McGowan and C Knaus, ‘Essentially a cover-up’: why it’s so hard to measure the over-policing of Indigenous Australians, The Guardian, 13 June 2020.

[21] N Papalia, Disparities in Criminal Justice System Responses to First-Time Juvenile Offenders According to Indigenous Status, May 2019.

[22] Sentencing Council Queensland, Connecting the Dots, March 2021.

[23] Australian Bureau of Statistics, Prisoners in Australia (2018) Table 1.

[24] K Richards, L Rosevear and R Gilbert, Promising interventions for reducing indigenous juvenile offending: Brief 1, Australian Institute of Criminology, March 2011.

[25] Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, Youth detention population in Australia 2018, December 2018.

[26] W G Jennings et al, On the overlap between victimisation and offending: A review of the literature, Aggression and Violent Behaviour, 2012, p 17.

[27] Centre for Innovative Justice, Strengthening Victoria’s Victim Support System: Victim Services Review, November 2020, p 14.

[28] Victorian Government, ‘Record Recruitment Drive Boosts Police Numbers’, Media release, 15 July 2019 https://www.premier.vic.gov.au/record-recruitment-drive-boosts-police-numbers/

[29] Blue Knot Foundation, Trauma and the law: Applying trauma-informed practice to legal and judicial contexts, 2016, p 5.

[30] Former High Court Justice Michael McHugh in a speech to the Western Australian Law Society, 2004.

[31] M Segrave and J Ratcliffe, Community Policing: A descriptive overview, March 2004.

[32] KPMG, Magistrates’ Court of Victoria, Evaluation of the Drug Court of Victoria, 2014, p. 4.

[33] S Ross, Evaluating neighbourhood justice: Measuring and attributing outcomes for a community justice program, 2015, p. 5.

[34] Coroners Court of Victoria, Finding into death without inquest (Shae Harry Paszkiewicz), February 2021.

[35]Ibid.  

[36] Confederation of European Probation, Norwegian Reintegration Guarantee aims to provide ex-prisoners the right tools for resocialization.

[38] Sentencing Advisory Council, Released prisoner returning to prison, 2020.

[37] BBC, How Norway turns criminals into good neighbours, July 2019.

• Implementing the Legislated Spent Convictions Scheme
  $1.2m in 2020-21 ($5.3m/4 yrs) funding is provided to establish the Spent Convictions Scheme, which will be administered by Victoria Police and provide a framework for controlled disclosure of certain criminal records after periods without serious reoffending.

• Legal assistance and critical early intervention support services
  $10.1m in 2020-21 ($31.1m/4 yrs) to maintain critical legal services and improve access to justice for Victorians who need support, through:

• • continuing grant payments to Community Legal Centres
  • expanding the Mabels family violence service
  • continuing the WEstjustice Mortgage Stress Service, which delivers a combination of legal, social, health and financial assistance to prevent the repossession of homes and reduce mortgage stress
  • supporting the Federation of Community Legal Centres
  • supporting the Victorian Law Reform Commission’s reference on stalking, harassment and similar conduct, and the use of Personal Safety Intervention Orders
  • continuing Victoria Legal Aid’s (VLA) Independent Advocacy and Support service
  • employing additional VLA lawyers and support staff to represent and assist parents and children in child protection legal proceedings
  • delivering the Coronial Council review into improving the experiences of bereaved families in the coronial process
  • providing specialist legal services to the LGBTIQ+ community
  • supplementing Victoria’s contribution to the Community Legal Assistance Service System, and
  • supporting the Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission and reducing its dispute resolution service backlog.

• Embedded Youth Outreach Program
  $1.5m in 2020-21 ($6.3m/4 yrs) to continue the embedded Youth Outreach Program in the existing locations of Werribee and Dandenong, where police officers and youth workers are paired to provide assessment, initial support and referral for vulnerable young people and prevent possible future reoffending.

• Preventing Aboriginal deaths in custody
  $10.9m in 2021-22 ($31.2/4 yrs) to reduce over-representation of Aboriginal people in the justice system and prevent Aboriginal deaths in custody, including after-hours family violence support, regional legal assistance, family violence and specialist family services, women’s and men’s diversion programs, and health, art and healing programs in prison.

• Justice system response to family violence
  $5.4m in 2021-22 ($13.7/4 yrs) to further strengthen, integrate and embed the justice system’s response to family violence, through:
  • • establishing legal services in The Orange Door network
    • continuing counselling and trauma programs to support women in prison
    • continuing family violence training and implementation of the Multi-Agency Risk Assessment and Management (MARAM) framework across the justice portfolio supported by specialist family violence practice leads embedded in Corrections Victoria and Youth Justice
    • building family violence capacity through dedicated research and evaluation functions, and
    • better identification of perpetrators and continuation of tailored intervention programs to support behaviour change and help break the cycle of family violence.
• Specialist family violence integrated court response
  $10.1m in 2021-22 ($42.6m/4 yrs) to establish specialist family violence courts at remaining Magistrates Court headquarters, including improvements to ensure user safety and accessibility, continuing the remote hearing service and expanding the Court Mandated Counselling Order Program.
• Disability Advice and Response Team for the Children’s Court
  $0.7m in 2020-21 ($3.9m/4 yrs) for a team to support young people with disability who have matters before the Children’s Court. This will lead to a clear pathway for young people to access disability support in a timely manner, helping to reduce the burden on the courts and reducing the time to hear a matter.
• Increasing justice system capacity and service availability
  $17.7m in 2020-21 ($55.4m/4 yrs) to improve the justice system’s service availability and capacity to respond to the increasing volume of matters moving through the courts, and to reduce delays caused by the COVID-19 public health restrictions.

• Online Magistrates Court and digital upgrades to VCAT
  $7.8m in 2021-22 ($30.7m/4 yrs) to expand the Online Magistrates Court program to hear more matters remotely, and $10.5m in 2021-22 ($27.8m/4 yrs) to upgrade digital services infrastructure, such as case management and process automation, in the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal.

• Responding to critical needs in the prison system
  $8.7m in 2020-21 ($41.5m/3 yrs) to address immediate needs in the prison system through continuation of Vocational Education and Training across the prison system and the ATLAS psycho-educational and wellbeing support for prisoners on remand, and extension of the Disability and Complex Needs Service program for women, being piloted at the Dame Phyllis Frost Centre.

Analysis

This Budget funds the long-awaited spent conviction scheme, the new health response to public drunkenness and a package of initiatives aimed to prevent Aboriginal deaths in custody.

This funding acknowledges that punitive responses to health and social issues are ineffective. The initiatives are examples of justice reinvestment approaches, which re-direct money that would normally be spent on policing and prisons towards local, community-based initiatives that prevent people from getting mixed up in the criminal justice system in the first place. Future budgets should take this further, by adopting a justice reinvestment framework, so that communities can tackle disadvantage and implement place-based initiatives that address the health, social and legal problems that drive people to offend.

Funding has been provided for community-based diversionary services for young people and to retain the Embedded Youth Outreach Program at the existing locations of Werribee and Dandenong. While these are welcome initiatives, future budgets should further prioritise initiatives that keep kids safely away from the justice system, and fund therapeutic responses to children engaging in offending behaviour.

While we welcome the range of interventions funded under the ‘Preventing Aboriginal deaths in custody’ package, this investment will not be enough to address Aboriginal over-representation in the justice system. In particular, Aboriginal community controlled legal assistance is critical to preventing Aboriginal people from becoming involved in the justice system, but funding in this Budget is not enough to meet demand.

We welcome funding for community legal centres to ensure that Victorians can access affordable and timely legal assistance. Demand for legal help with tenancy, employment, family violence, consumer, fines and financial issues has significantly increased since the pandemic. It is not yet clear where the funding will be directed.

This Budget also funds initiatives that integrate legal assistance with other health and social supports, including the Mortgage Stress program delivered by WEstjustice, the Mabels Family Violence program delivered by the Eastern Community Legal Centre, and the provision of legal services in the Orange Door Network.

The Victorian Government should consider how to scale existing models to meet demand in other locations or to respond to other issues and cohorts. New innovative and place-based integrated legal assistance programs should also be supported with new funding.

This Budget raises the price of traffic infringements and court-imposed fines, by increasing the penalty unit value by 10 per cent, following a freeze in 2020-21. Fine increases have a disproportionate impact on people on low or no incomes. A concession-based fine system and special circumstances test would be much fairer.

VCOSS welcomes funding to establish Specialist Family Violence Courts in all the remaining Magistrates Court headquarters, improvements to ensure that victim survivors of family violence can access courts safely, and a Disability Advice and Response Team for the Children’s Court. This funding enables courts to apply specialist responses to specific needs, and future budgets should continue to invest in such problem-solving approaches in different court jurisdictions to meet demand.   

The Magistrates Court and VCAT continue to face backlogs, with court users experiencing delays in having their matters heard. The switch to virtual and remote engagement with courts during the pandemic has helped some people resolve legal issues more quickly, improved accessibility for some people with disability, reduced transport barriers for rural Victorians and helped victims of crime who may find attending court traumatising. 

But many Victorians still live on the wrong side of the digital divide. Without personal internet access, participating in virtual court proceedings is very challenging. An over-reliance on technology could make it even harder for people to enforce their rights or resolve legal issues.

The priority for digitisation should be on safety and access, not just efficiency and reduced delays. The Government should monitor the impact of the system changes – such as digital service delivery – on different users to ensure that low-income and vulnerable Victorians are benefiting from system changes.

$41.5 million is provided over three years for programs that respond to the needs of people in the prison system, including Vocational Education and Training across the prison system, support for people on remand, and extension of the Disability and Complex Needs Service program for women that’s being piloted at the Dame Phyllis Frost Centre.

The housing assistance package includes funding to provide additional support for people leaving prison. VCOSS has long advocated for the establishment of a ‘no exits into homelessness’ policy. We were disappointed that, while the Final Report of the Inquiry into Homelessness in Victoria recommended establishing such a policy to guide discharge planning and support from institutional settings, this recommendation was absent in the Final Report of the Royal Commission into Victoria’s Mental Health System.

The Government will respond to the Final Report of the Homelessness Inquiry in September 2021, and we hope to see this recommendation adopted and funded in future budgets, so that wraparound supports can be provided to people leaving prison, to prevent homelessness and further criminalisation once people have served their sentence.

by Andrew Carman.

This story is part of the My Corona series. We’re publishing personal stories about the pandemic, life in isolation and Victorians’ hopes and fears for the future. We have changed Andrew’s surname at his request.  

The first I knew about it was 4:30pm on Saturday. I got a phone call from a friend wanting to know where I was.

“At home,” I said.

“Do you know you’re in hard lockdown?” he replied.

So I went downstairs and there were coppers everywhere, looked like Critical Incident Response police. I realised, hang on, this doesn’t look good.

I wanted to get my laptop out of my car and a copper threatened me with a fine. In the end he relented, but he followed me to the car and followed me back.

There was no degree of compassion. I mean, there’s no way I could have got into the car and driven away. It was blatantly obvious I had no personal belongings with me, just my keys. I just wanted to get my laptop.

I found out more on the news that night: hard lockdown, you’re not going anywhere. It was very confronting.

I had enough food to get me through for five days. I was probably going to be a bit dicey on vegetables, but I could have lived without them. But I was actually quite worried that it would be extended beyond the five days.

There was a total lack of communication, nobody seemed to know what was going on.

Not even the Salvation Army, who have an office downstairs, were allowed into the building. You couldn’t even go down into the foyer and speak to the them while maintaining a social distance.

I’d been tested for COVID-19 the week before and had the negative result on my phone, which I showed the police. It had come through on the Thursday and I’d been home all day Friday. All I’d done is go to the supermarket on Saturday morning, wearing a face mask the whole time.

But there was this massive overreaction with coppers.  It was contemptuous treatment, a total mistrust.

There was no food delivered until the Monday. I would say a lot of people use shopping as their daily exercise, so they would shop on a daily basis. I wonder how many people had nothing until Monday.

On the Monday we got a box from Foodbank. Most of the stuff was out of date so I just threw it down the rubbish chute.

And then we got a load from Woolworths, a load from Coles and a load from The Smith Family. It was actually overkill because the majority of people in this block are single occupants.

At one stage I ended up with nine litres of milk. Bloody ridiculous.

It was contemptuous treatment, a total mistrust.

There was no knock on the door to tell you when food was delivered. You’d see people walking past through the window and you’d open the door and the stuff would just be there.

There was no communication about testing, they’d just come to your unit. I had them stick it up my snout and out the back of my brain, down my throat, and that was it. It was done on the Tuesday and I got the result on the Thursday. Negative.

The bit that hurt me the most was I couldn’t see my grandchildren.  But I became resigned to it. I thought; Five days, I’ve got to cop this.

About 4pm Friday, word spread that the lockdown was finally over. I went down at 4:30pm, but the cops said, “No, you can’t go out until the morning.”

At about 5pm the Premier finally came on TV: ‘It’s now going to end at 11:59pm.’

That was a kick in the guts.

I had a birthday present for my granddaughter, Elena.

It hurt because I felt like an absolute ratbag for not being able to give her the present and a hug on the day. I don’t think any grandparent would feel any differently.

Andrew was interviewed remotely by Seven News on the second day of lockdown.

When I got up the next morning, Saturday, the first thing I did was look down. No coppers. I was allowed out.

It felt bloody beautiful, I can tell you. The weather didn’t matter—you were free!

To a certain extent, it felt like incarceration. You’re locked up though you’ve done nothing wrong.

I’m lucky, I’ve got family who would have delivered stuff (if they could), but there are a lot of people who’ve got no one. I was also lucky that I had enough medication to get me through.

The other thing is there’s people with mental health issues, how did they cope? At least I’ve got a phone. The bloke in the unit next door to me hasn’t got a phone, he’s got no contact with the outside world.

We were treated as second class citizens because we’re in public housing. If I’d been in a private high-rise block, there is no way known they could have got away with it. They would have had lawyers jumping all over them.

If I’d been in a private high-rise block, there’s no way known they could have got away with it. They would have had lawyers jumping all over them.

The week was like nothing I’ve ever experienced. I was angry but I understood, to a certain extent.

But I still think that it could have been handled a lot better.

I think it was done in a very arbitrary way and without any form of compassion. It was humiliating.

If the government have to do a hard lockdown again they should knock on every door, actually tell people what’s happening, give them half an hour’s notice.

I’m not blaming the police (except for that first one). They acted with great respect.

But I must admit, every morning when I get up I still look out to see if there’s coppers downstairs again.

I’ve got no trust. Simple as that. And we’re still now allowed to move around freely, without any restrictions.

When we had SARS, you knew it would come to an end.

We had the global financial crisis; but you could see there was going to be an end to it.

But this? You can’t see an end.  

When governments talk about ‘progress’, it’s almost always in economic terms.

In these terms, Australia has had an unprecedented period of progress, with 28 years of economic growth. But we argue that economic progress is only one indicator of a society’s success.

Increasingly, we’re seeing both politicians and the public call for new ways of thinking about budgets and the economy. The traction that New Zealand’s ‘wellbeing budget’ has gained (and the resistance it has received from some members of parliament) indicates that Australians want new ways of talking about progress. VCOSS has similarly urged the Victorian Government to shift to a wellbeing economy that prioritises achieving social outcomes, not only tracking economic progress.

We know that economic indicators alone don’t tell us what life is like for people living in Australia. We cannot assume that simply because Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is going up, so is the wellbeing of a society. The mining boom is a stark example – while it has contributed to strong economic development for Australia, it has also had devastating impacts on the environment and communities where mining took place.

As anyone who has worked in advocacy knows, it can be hard to argue for change without some form of data to support the argument. Economic measures are readily accessible – GDP, unemployment rates and household spending are all used as indicators of how economically progressive a society is.

What we need, then, are ways of showing how socially progressive a society is, based on its ability to meet human needs and create foundations for wellbeing and opportunity.

Over the last 14 months, our team at the Centre for Social Impact have been working with the Social Progress Imperative in developing Australia’s first Social Progress Index (SPI) as part of the Amplify Social Impact project. The Index has been calculated at a global level since 2013, but this is the first time that we can see where there are unique successes and challenges across Australia’s states and territories.

What does the Social Progress Index measure?

The Social Progress Index defines social progress as “the capacity of a society to meet the basic human needs of its citizens, establish the building blocks that allow citizens and communities to enhance and sustain the quality of their lives, and create the conditions for all individuals to reach their full potential.” It works by collecting indicators that contribute to components of social progress, with the aim of answering what we call ‘universally important questions’. For example:

• Personal safety: Do people feel safe?
• Health and wellness: Do people live long and healthy lives?
• Personal freedom and choice: Are people free to make their own choices?

Finding data that could appropriately represent these components was no easy task – which may explain why we tend to rely on economic dollar values as indicators of progress, rather than trying to gauge how people are experiencing life within a society. We consulted with academics, not-for-profit and peak body representatives, industry, and local and national government departments to get a sense of what a ‘wishlist’ of socially progressive indicators would be, and set out to see what data was available.

We ended up with 52 indicators that made up the Index, including estimated homelessness rate, the rate of people who experienced physical assault in the last 12 months, and the proportion of people who agree that the police “treat people fairly and equally”. (You can see the full methodology, including the final indicators and their data sources, here.)

This process led us to this insight into how Australian states and territories ranked (scores and rankings are available for exploration on our website), relative to one another, in overall social progress in 2018.

It should be noted that the SPI is an indicator of how socially progressive the state or territory’s policies and societies are – not the individuals who live there. However, with such stark disparities in scores between the Northern Territory and other states and territories, we can see that the way policy and programs are being delivered in the Northern Territory is simply not working.

Australian states and territories generally did well on foundational concepts such as access to nutrition and basic medical care, but scored lower on social equity indicators such as access to information and communication, and personal freedom and choice. It is not enough to focus only on basic human needs – for overall social progress to improve, all components of the SPI must increase.

Putting the Index to use – and improving it over time

We want the SPI to be a useful tool for those in the not-for-profit and for-purpose sector to advocate and elevate their causes. Most people can find their cause represented somewhere in the Index, even if their specific indicator wasn’t able to be included. We hope it can be a tool that can be used to advocate for funding or political attention.

How can the SPI help decision-making? We’re planning on taking the SPI results on the road, visiting state and territory governments to talk through the SPI results to understand where there is success in policy, but also where there are specific areas that require targeted help.

We need to shift away from an economy-focused view of growth, and instead look towards inclusive growth that prioritises the wellbeing and opportunity of communities and the people who live in them. The Australian Social Progress Index is one way to help amplify this call.

Dr Megan Weier is a Research Fellow at the Centre for Social Impact.

Children under 12 couldn’t have seen Aladdin or the Lion King at the cinemas without a parent or guardian. Children under 13 need their parents’ permission to buy iPad apps. Children under 14 pay only $6 to see a footy game, a quarter of the price of adult tickets.

Yet children as young as 10 can and do experience the full force of the criminal justice system.

Children who become involved with the criminal justice system are extremely vulnerable. Child offending is closely linked to experiences of disadvantage. Before they offend, children have commonly already experienced trauma, abuse and neglect.

A punitive response to such behaviour effectively punishes those children for having a rough start in life, and in many cases can lead to a lifetime of criminality, disadvantage and exclusion. This means that children are punished long after being involved with the criminal justice system.

This response is failing vulnerable children.

If the system were set up differently, a child acting up could provide an opportunity for a positive intervention in their life. Behaviour that warrants the states attention could be met with care and support. This would give children the best possible chance to grow out of anti-social behaviours, strengthen their resilience and natural supports, and mature into prosocial adults.

This submission explores the questions posed by this review in two parts. Part one outlines why we should raise the age of criminal responsibility to 14. Part two of this submission provides a principles framework to underpin an integrated continuum of support to respond to child offending. A response which better connects the justice, social and universal service systems will enable a holistic response to the needs of the whole child to prevent harm and promote a safe community.

VCOSS would like to acknowledge the research and policy development undertaken by our members and sector colleagues which informed this submission, including the Smart Justice for Young People coalition, the Change the Record coalition, and Jesuit Social Services.

Raise the age of criminal responsibility

Recommendation

• Raise the minimum age of criminal responsibility to 14 in all circumstances

In all Australian states and territories, the minimum age of criminal responsibility is 10 years. This means children under the age of 10 years are considered incapable of committing an offence.

When a child older than 10 but younger than 14 commits an offence, the legal principle doli incapax is intended to provide a safeguard from the full force of the criminal law, and divert them from the criminal justice system.

The principle presumes that children aged 10 to 14 years are ‘criminally incapable’ because they cannot differentiate between behaviour that is merely naughty or criminal acts that are seriously wrong in the moral sense. Doli incapax provides that where a child does not understand the difference, they should not be held criminally responsible.

This presumption is rebuttable, with the onus on prosecution to prove in court that the child was capable of understanding the difference. If it is not rebutted, a child who offends may be found criminally responsible, and subject to full force of the criminal justice system, including imprisonment. In 2017 – 18, on any given day, there were 25 children under 14 on youth justice supervision in Victoria.[1]

Children should be protected from the force of the criminal justice system

Childhood is a distinct developmental stage. It makes sense that since children behave differently to adults, responses to their behaviour should be different too.

Well-established research underpins this. Children’s brains and their emotional, mental and intellectual maturity are still developing. Children seek rewards and short-term gains and they test limits and boundaries. They tend to be more susceptible to peer influence and risk-taking behaviour.[2]

If children act up, it is generally developmentally normal behaviour. They are not at a cognitive level of development where they are able to fully appreciate the criminal nature of their actions, or the potential consequences these actions give rise to.[3] Most child and young offending is episodic and transitory, and most children ‘grow out’ of offending behaviour as they mature.^[4],[5]

It is often the most vulnerable and disadvantaged children who come to the attention of the criminal justice system for anti-social or offending behaviour. Children in the youth justice system are often survivors of abuse and neglect, have experienced the child protection system, homelessness, mental ill-health and more. They require a higher duty of care and more intensive interventions to meet their complex needs.[6]

Children involved with youth justice who have also experienced out-of-home-care have high rates of adverse experiences, including exposure to family violence, severe mental illness, traumatic deaths, drug use and household criminal justice involvement. The vast majority of these children have experienced neglect, and others have experienced physical abuse.

The current response to child offending effectively punishes children for having a rough start in life.

Doli incapax fails to safeguard children in the justice system

In recognition of the difference between children and adults, doli incapax is intended to provide protection from the criminal justice system.

Instead, it routinely fails to safeguard children. It is applied inconsistently and it can be very difficult for children to access expert evidence to prove in court that they are ‘criminally incapable’, particularly children in regional and remote areas.[7]

Further, by the time doli incapax is applied in court, the child has already been exposed to many stages of criminal procedure, including arrest, detainment and questioning.

This is unnecessarily criminogenic.[8] Research indicates that the younger a child is when they first come into contact with the justice system, the more likely they will become entrenched in the justice system.[9]

Once the age of criminal responsibility is raised to 14 years, doli incapax would be redundant.

Australia is out of step with international standards

Australia has one of the lowest ages of criminal responsibility in the world. The median age of criminal responsibility worldwide is 14 years old.

The United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child has consistently said that countries should be working towards a minimum age of 14 years or older. The United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous People has urged Australia to increase the age of criminal responsibility and stated that ‘children should only be detained as a last resort, which is not the case today for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children ’. Australia has been repeatedly criticised by the United Nations, most recently by the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, for failing to reform the current minimum age of criminal responsibility.

Minimum ages of criminal responsibility around the world

Internationally, there are many examples of strong systems which support children who offend in meaningful and holistic ways. Looking around the world shows that raising the age of criminal responsibility, and therapeutic, welfare-based responses to young offending are possible.

For example, the best interests of the child are ensured through legislation in Sweden, Belgium and Spain. This enables interventions based on their needs, rather than a discrete response to offending behaviours.[10]

Prevent harm through appropriate responses to child offending

“The best way to protect the community is to invest in measures that prevent or interrupt the criminal pathways of children who would otherwise go on to commit a disproportionately high volume of youth crime. Measures such as enhanced early intervention and resources to rehabilitate young offenders are the best way to steer at-risk children away from a life of crime and protect the community in the long term.”

Sentencing Advisory Council, 2016^[11]

Exposing children to the criminal justice system is harmful for the children involved, their families and the broader community.

If the age of criminal responsibility is raised to 14, it will protect children from the harmful, criminalizing effects of the justice system. For those children who offend under 14, there is a better way to respond to their offending, and build their emotional, social and mental wellbeing as a protective factor against their offending.

Recommendations

• Make detention the option of last resort for all children and young people
• Establish a principles framework to underpin responses to child offending
• Establish an integrated support continuum which addresses the causes and risks associated with child offending
• Adopt a justice reinvestment framework which ensures equitable funding for programs across the continuum and better integration between systems

Keep children away from prison

The best place for a child is with their family, their natural supports and their community.

Detention should be considered the option of last resort for all young people who offend. If the minimum age of criminal responsibility is raised to 14, then children under 14 would not be subject to detention.

Establish a principles framework to underpin responses to child offending

When a child demonstrates anti-social or offending behaviour, an opportunity emerges for appropriate social supports to make a positive intervention in their life. Responses to child offending should:

• Be child-centred, strengths based and trauma-informed. This includes responding to the holistic needs of the child, the underlying causes of their offending, and the needs of their family/natural supports;
• Comply with Australia’s international human rights obligations and the Victorian Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities;
• Assume shared accountability and responsibility for offending, on the basis that the majority of child offending is a consequence of the failings of the institutions intended to support the child;
• Commit to addressing the overrepresentation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island children and young people, CALD children and young people and young people who have been involved with out-of-home-care.

Establish an integrated continuum of supports for children and their families

Supports should be provided across an integrated continuum, prioritizing and investing in prevention, early intervention and therapeutic and restorative justice as the most effective ways to respond to child and young offending/re-offending (see figure 1, p 12).

VCOSS believes that a system-wide response is required to tackle the systemic failings which underpin children’s involvement in the justice system. This integrates policies and practices across child and family welfare, education, disability, health, police, legal and youth justice systems. Community should be involved in design and implementation, including Aboriginal and culturally diverse communities, increases their effectiveness by addressing community-identified problems, drawing on existing community strengths and resources, and being culturally responsive.[12]

Reorienting responses to child offending from punitive to therapeutic will require a significant boost in funding for effective programs. This can be achieved by adopting a justice reinvestment framework which ensures equitable funding for programs across the continuum and better integration between systemsPresently, a significant barrier to protecting children from offending and reoffending is the lack of access to an appropriate program which meets their needs and is a proportionate response to the nature of their offending behaviour.

Enable and empower Aboriginal families, communities, and organisations to support children in culturally safe and appropriate ways

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children are over-imprisoned, making up about 60 per cent of the young children in youth jails, despite being only about 5 per cent of the population (aged 10-17).[13] Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples continue to experience the ongoing impacts of colonisation, trauma, dispossession and racism. The over-incarceration of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and young people is both a result of this ongoing trauma, and exacerbates it.

In Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, the planning, design and implementation alternative justice responses should be community-led.

[1] Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, Youth detention population in Australia 2018, December 2018.

[2] For more, see Sentencing Advisory Council, Sentencing Children and Yong People in Victoria, April 2012; Chris Cunneen, Arguments for Raising the Minimum Age of Criminal Responsibility: Research Report, 2017; Queensland Family and Child Commission, The Age of Criminal Responsibility in Queensland, January 2017;

[3] Ibid.

[4] Lucinda Jordan and James Farrell, Juvenile Justice Diversion in Victoria: A Blank Canvas?, Current Issues in Criminal Justice, Volume 24 Number 3, March 2013.

[5] Kelly Richards, What makes juvenile offenders different from adult offenders?, Trends & Issues in Crime and Criminal Justice no. 409, Australian Institute of Criminology, February 2011.

[6] Australian Institute of Criminology, What makes juvenile offenders different from adult offenders? Trends & issues in crime and criminal justice, No. 409 February 2011.

[7] Kate Fitz-Gibbon and Wendy O’Brien, ‘A Child’s Capacity to Commit Crime: Examining the Operation of Doli Incapax in Victoria (Australia)’, International Journal for Crime, Justice and Social Democracy, December 2019.

[8] Parliament of Victoria, ‘Youth Justice in Victoria’, Research Papers, 2017.

[9] Chris Cunneen, Arguments for Raising the Minimum Age of Criminal Responsibility: Research Report, 2017.

[10] Jesuit Social Services, Raising the Age of Criminal Responsibility: There is a Better Way, October 2019, p4.

[11] Sentencing Advisory Council, Reoffending by Children and Young People in Victoria, Sentencing Advisory Council, Melbourne, December 2016.

[12] Kelly Richards, L Rosevear and R Gilbert, Promising interventions for reducing indigenous juvenile offending: Brief 1, Australian Institute of Criminology, March 2011.

[13] Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, Youth detention population in Australia 2018, December 2018.

Setting the minimum age of criminal responsibility in Australia at 10 years of age harms children, and in particular Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children. It is discriminatory, out of step with human rights standards and neuroscientific understanding of children’s brain development.

All Australian Governments should raise the age of criminal responsibility to at least 14 years.

Youth offending is closely linked to disadvantage. Children who offend are also more likely to have experienced child abuse and neglect, disability, mental illness, drug and alcohol abuse, exposure to crime and violence and homelessness.[1] Current responses fail to respond to these disadvantages in a therapeutic and effective way that addresses the reason children are committing crimes.

Early contact with the criminal justice system can also increase the likelihood of poor outcomes for already vulnerable young people. Involvement in the criminal justice system at a young age can cause further harm and young people aged 10–14 in the youth justice system are at risk of becoming chronic, long-term offenders,[2] through exposure to harmful environments and the isolation from family and support networks.

The United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child has called for countries to have a minimum age of criminal responsibility set at 14 or higher and recommends that children under 16 should not be deprived of liberty.

Principles of reform

The laws that dictate the age of criminal responsibility in all states, territories and the Commonwealth need to be reformed in line with the following principles (developed by a coalition of legal, health, youth and community organisations):

1. The minimum age of criminal responsibility must be raised to at least 14 years.

The minimum age of criminal responsibility should be increased to 14 in all circumstances, with no exceptions, on the basis that:

• Medical evidence highlights this distinct developmental stage of adolescence and supports raising the age. The current age of criminal responsibility is inconsistent with research on brain development. Children lack the necessary components of criminal responsibility, both in terms of behaviour control and moral awareness.
• Exposure to the criminal justice system damages health and wellbeing.
• Australia is out of step with international human rights standards and the minimum age of criminal responsibilities in other countries.

Detention should also be considered a last resort for all young people who offend.

2. There must be no ‘carve outs’ to this legislation, even for serious offences.

3. Doli incapax – fails to safeguard children, is applied inconsistently and results in discriminatory practices.

Doli incapax is an old, common law rebuttable presumption that children lack the capacity to be criminally responsible for their acts. In order to rebut the presumption, it must be proved that at the time of an offence the child knew that his or her actions were seriously wrong in the moral sense. By the time doli incapax is applied in court, the child has already been exposed to many stages of criminal procedure (like arrest and detainment) and the resulting criminogenic effects of exposure to the criminal justice system.

This presumption routinely fails to safeguard children. It is applied inconsistently and it can be very difficult for children to access expert evidence, particularly children in regional and remote areas.

The presumption also does not reflect contemporary medical or social science knowledge of childhood development, long term health effects of criminal justice involvement, or human rights law.

Once the age of criminal responsibility is raised to 14 years, doli incapax would be redundant.

4. Prevention, early intervention, and diversionary responses linked to culturally-safe and trauma-responsive services including education, health and community services should be prioritised and expanded.

It is often the most vulnerable and disadvantaged children who come to the attention of the criminal justice system.

Instead of punitive, responses to child offending must:

• Be child-centred, strengths based and trauma-informed. This includes responding to the holistic needs of the child, the underlying causes of their offending, and the needs of their family and natural supports.
• Assume shared accountability and responsibility for offending, on the basis that the majority of child offending is a consequence of the failings of the institutions intended to support the child.
• Prioritise and invest in early intervention, prevention and diversion as the most effective ways to reduce child and youth offending and re-offending.
• Commit to addressing the overrepresentation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island children and young people, CALD children and young people and young people who have been involved with out-of-home-care.
• Adopt a justice reinvestment framework that focuses on prevention and place-based responses to address disadvantage.

5. In Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, the planning, design and implementation of prevention, early intervention and diversionary responses should be community-led.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children are over-imprisoned, making up about 60 per cent of the young children in youth jails, despite being only about 5 per cent of the population (aged 10-17).[3] Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples continue to experience the ongoing impacts of colonisation, trauma, dispossession and racism. The over-incarceration of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and young people is both a result of this ongoing trauma, and exacerbates it.

Raising the age of criminal responsibility will assist in addressing the overrepresentation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children in the justice system, and with investment and support, will provide greater opportunities to enable and empower Aboriginal families, communities, and organisations to support children in culturally safe and appropriate ways.

asd

About the Councils of Social Service

The Councils of Social Service (COSSes) are the respective National, State and Territory peak bodies of the community services sector and a voice for the needs of people affected by poverty and inequality.

This submission has been prepared for the COSS Network and authorised by the Chief Executive Officer of each Council. Some Councils will also provide an individual submission, expanding on the experiences in their state/territory.

The Councils are:

• The Australian Council of Social Service (ACOSS)
• The Australian Capital Territory Council of Social Service (ACTCOSS)
• The Council of Social Service of New South Wales (NCOSS)
• The Northern Territory Council of Social Service (NTCOSS)
• The Queensland Council of Social Service (QCOSS)
• The South Australian Council of Social Service (SACOSS)
• The Tasmanian Council of Social Service (TasCOSS)
• The Victorian Council of Social Service (VCOSS)
• The Western Australian Council of Social Service (WACOSS)

[1] Jesuit Social Services and Effective Change Pty Ltd, Thinking Outside: Alternatives to remand for children, 2013, Richmond.

[2] Australian Institute of Health and Welfare 2013, Young people aged 10 – 14 in the youth justice system 2011 – 2012, AIHW, Canberra, p. vi. Available at: http://www.aihw.gov.au/publication-detail/?id=60129543944

[3] Australian Institute of Health and Welfare,2018, Youth detention population in Australia 2018, AIHW, Canberra, https://www.aihw.gov.au/reports/youth-justice/youth-detention-population-in-australia-2018/contents/table-of-contents

VCOSS applauds the Victorian Government’s commitment to meaningful, principled and inclusive engagement with communities. Meaningful engagement, where there is genuine openness to hearing and including different views and perspectives, leads to better decision making and program design, and more engaged communities.

Effective engagement and co-design requires building a shared understanding of how communities will work with government to inform policy or decision-making processes, how timely feedback will be provided, and ultimately to demonstrate how the information provided by the community contributed to the final outcome.

Effective government policy reduces inequities and provides the greatest benefit to those who need it most. To do this successfully, governments must hear the voices of diverse groups, and understand how they experience policy and services differently. Lived experience must be not only heard, but valued.

Focus on co-design

Recommendations

• Include co-design with communities as an engagement principle in the Framework
• Work with communities to design engagement processes

While VCOSS generally supports the vision and outcomes of the draft framework, it would be strengthened by including a clear understanding of the principles of co-designing with vulnerable communities. Co-design involves more than just consultation. Co-design means coming alongside people who experience vulnerabilities, to work with them in creating interventions, services and programs that work in the context of their lives and reflect their values and goals. This involves letting go of professional assumptions about a group’s perspectives and experiences and actively learning from what people say and do.[1]

Co-design values, prioritises and incorporates multiple forms of expertise, including but extending beyond more traditional and limited reliance on professional knowledge and research. It uses these to consider different ways of approaching social problems with specific groups.

In co-design, the methodology will vary in the same way that people, problems and organisations do. Co-design practice is more a way of thinking than a process. This is because people, problems and contexts are always going to vary; as will the organisations and practitioners who work with them.[2] At its core, co-design involves transferring and sharing power with people who are affected by social problems. By working together, more effective solutions can be discovered by exploring innovative and creative alternatives.

Unfortunately VCOSS members and stakeholders report that engagement processes are sometimes poorly designed and do not place the experiences and perspectives of communities at the centre. We commonly hear examples where Government:

• Does not clearly articulate the purpose of the engagement or identify where people can influence decisions.
• Adopts a starting point that stakeholders disagree with or is misunderstood
• Asks the wrong questions or makes incorrect assumptions about communities or needs
• Is overly formal, bureaucratic or confusing
• Fails to identify and therefore engage the right stakeholders and impacted communities.

While some of these risks are identified in the draft framework, many would be addressed by a stronger focus on co-designing the engagement process itself with communities.

For example, the Victorian Auditor-General’s Office (VAGO) often ‘pre-consults’ with relevant stakeholders to make sure they are asking the right questions in broader engagement processes. This gives organisations and those with expert, on-the-ground knowledge the opportunity to shape the consultation process and ensures VAGO has the right stakeholders engaged.

Engage proactively with marginalised groups

Recommendations

• Require proactive and targeted engagement strategies for reaching specific communities and cohorts
• Recognise community service organisations and Aboriginal community-controlled organisations as partners in engaging communities
• Highlight examples of good practice in co-designing with communities

The importance of proactively engaging vulnerable communities and people is not adequately captured in the draft framework. Communities are best placed to identify their own needs, and how government decisions, policy-making and service design will impact them.

The framework should not assume that marginalised groups, who often have histories of trauma or past negative experiences with systems and policies, will engage, even where decisions will directly impact on their lives. People might experience stigma around identifying (for example as having a mental illness or being part of the LGBTIQ+ community), fear of speaking up, and mistrust of government and support services.

The framework should emphasise the need for specific strategies to reach communities including Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, refugee and asylum seekers, people with disability and LGBTIQ+ people. Younger people, older people, single parents, rural and regional Victorians, people who are homeless or living with a mental illness may also need targeted consultation strategies.

There are many examples of excellent practice. For example, in 2015 the Office for Youth commissioned community organisations like Melbourne City Mission to consult diverse cohorts of young people.[3] The consultation report highlighted the depth of insight young people had into their personal circumstances and those of their peers.  It also highlighted their awareness of personal and system barriers, and their knowledge of solutions.

As one young person said: “Younger people know what they want for their generation.”

Partnering with community organisations is one way to reach cohorts and communities that are ‘hard to reach.’ Community organisations have developed positions of trust and legitimacy in their communities, by building positive long-term relationships with people over years, or even generations. Employing peer workers and people with lived experience of disadvantage means community organisations often create a safer environment for vulnerable people to engage, because they feel their experiences are validated and understood.

The draft framework should recognise the role of community organisations as a way to engage ‘hard to reach’ communities.

In the Aboriginal community, Aboriginal community-controlled organisations (ACCOs) hold positions of trust and legitimacy. The governance, structure and mission of ACCOs means they are embedded in their communities and connected with people in ways distinct from government and other mainstream services. This ‘on-the-ground’ knowledge, experience and connection means ACCOs are well placed to identify complex social problems and develop innovative solutions to addressing disadvantage. ACCOs must be acknowledged in the Engagement Framework as partners in co-design and vital links to community.

For many people, speaking to others who share and understand their lived experience can also build faster, stronger connections for people to feel comfortable sharing their story. The framework is an opportunity to highlight peer support models of engagement, including employing local community leaders, facilitators with lived experience or provision of peer support counselling.

The approach used to develop the Victorian Disability Services Commissioner’s ‘Building Safe and Respectful Cultures’ pilot project in June 2019 provides some valuable learnings about engaging people with lived experiences.[4] The project explored building safe and respectful cultures, particularly around people with disability who have experienced violence, abuse and neglect in services.

Community researchers with lived experience were employed to collect data and stories from people with disability, and it was noted that the relational nature of their role helped to build a sense of safety for participants; assisted with recognising subtle signs of discomfort, concern or feeling unsafe; and enabled staff to act and provide appropriate support.

These kinds of examples could be highlighted in the framework to encourage good practice.

Provide more information about accessibility

Recommendations

• Refer to existing materials about accessible communications
• Partner with community organisations to reach people in welcoming and supportive environments
• Consider the range of barriers that can prevent people engaging, including physical location, unwelcoming environments, digital exclusion or anxiety

VCOSS supports the strong focus in the draft framework on accessibility, including physical accessibility of buildings, provision of information in alternative formats and plain English, and thinking about supports including interpreters, travel expenses and inclusion training.

We also welcome the focus on “going to where people are.”

For example, the Djirra runs Sisters Day Out workshops to prevent family violence by facilitating community networks, reducing social isolation, raising awareness of family violence and providing information and tools to promote community safety. The workshops are an opportunity for Djirra and other invited organisations to engage Aboriginal women in a relaxed, supportive and culturally safe environment. Government can consider approaching organisations like Djirra that convene community events, to discuss whether it is appropriate to engage participants in consultation and co-design.

However, the draft strategy could go further in providing practical information about engaging with all Victorians. Some people have chronic illnesses, allergies or anxieties that make attending and participating in events difficult. Accessibility is not limited to physical venue and materials. A significant number of Victorians have low levels of literacy. Many also do not have access to the internet at home. Online engagement mechanisms or notification of consultations may not effectively engage these groups.

The Victorian Government already provides guidance about accessible communications and documents. In VCOSS’ experience not all staff know about or are familiar with these guidelines. The framework should refer directly to them.

Additional guidance about the meaning of physical accessibility should also be incorporated. For example, VCOSS’ website contains information about how to get to our office, width of doorways, lighting and accessible and gender neutral bathrooms. This helps people prepare to attend events and consultations.

We also recommend the Victorian Parliament website, where you can undertake a virtual/online tour of meeting rooms,[5] including information about floor plans, width of doorways and aisles.

Resource communities to engage and pay people for their time

Recommendation

• Encourage payment for people and organisations for their time participating and preparing for government processes

Hearing the voices of marginalised groups and people is crucial to good policy and decision-making. Hearing the voices of people with lived experience of disadvantage, or who have been let-down by the service system, helps us understand the causes of disadvantage, the barriers to seeking help and the challenges in navigating complex systems.

In a report on co-designing social initiatives with people experiencing vulnerabilities, VCOSS said “finding the right way to approach social problems involves partnering with the people who face them head on.”[6]

Organisations that are governed by people with relevant lived experience, like LGBTIQ groups, Aboriginal community-controlled organisations and consumer-led services help make sure policy reforms and service design are generally suited to people’s needs.

However, this can place a heavy burden on people and organisations. While most are committed to improving outcomes for their communities, participation requires resources. It often involves significant preparation, research and consultation with peers and members. It can also place a heavy personal burden, requiring people to retell often traumatic stories about their own experiences with the system.

People should not experience financial barriers to participation in government processes, and their participation should not encumber them with a financial burden. People’s time and expertise should be valued, and paid for.

For example, during the consultation phase of the Royal Commission into Family Violence and in the implementation of its recommendations, consumer organisations report being called on to participate in countless consultations and service design processes. Many organisations received no or little additional funding to undertake this work, and had to fit it in around supporting clients and community.

There is reference in the draft framework to “additional support… including travel expenses or accommodation”. But this doesn’t adequately represent the cost of engaging in consultation processes. The framework should value people’s expertise and encourage payment for people with lived experience participating in engagement processes.

Include target timeframes

Recommendation

• Be specific about best-practice timeframes for consultation processes: at least 6-8 weeks’ notice should be provided for in-person consultations and submissions

Meaningful engagement requires sufficient time. Time for people to become aware of the process, undertake their own research, consultation and thinking, and prepare their responses accordingly.

A minimum of 6-8 weeks should be provided for the preparation of written submissions. Similar notice should be provided for in-person consultations.

In VCOSS experience, four weeks is simply insufficient time for meaningful consultation. We often scramble to prepare responses to draft regulations or decisions within this timeframe. As a result, we may miss out on hearing valuable stories or voices from within our own membership or stakeholders.

VCOSS strongly recommends timeframes be expressly referenced in the framework.

Align consultation processes

Recommendations

• Recognise the burden on communities and organisations of multiple engagement processes underway at once
• Where possible, recommend aligning or combining engagement processes

There can be scores of public consultation processes underway at the same time. Often community service workers are trying to provide input to multiple consultations across different departments, parliamentary inquiries and royal commissions, while still managing their ongoing workloads and (in some cases) delivery of frontline services.

This should be recognised in the framework.

Government should make sure they research other consultation processes underway at the same time, and are aware of the impacts this is likely to have on communities and organisations. They might need to allow more time for submissions or schedule additional consultation events. There may also be opportunities to combine engagement processes with similar or related content, to minimise the burden on communities.

The Engage Victoria website is an example of a coordinated process, where information is collated in one central spot. This could be built on through more coordination of consultations across departments.

Community organisations are providing vital community support to vulnerable community members. They have invaluable information about community need and how policies work ‘on the ground’. But participation in consultation processes can take them away from frontline service delivery. Community organisations often report frustrations when they have to provide staff or consultants with basic background about their work, the environment they operate in or reforms and policies that apply to them.

Engagement processes should respect the work of community organisations, by making sure staff have undertaken basic background research, and have knowledge about the sector and the work they do. They should also build on past engagement processes and be clear about how information from other processes, including submissions and consultation reports will be used and incorporated into current processes.

[1] VCOSS, Walk alongside: Co-designing social initiatives with people experiencing vulnerabilities, 2015.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Melbourne City Mission, What’s important to YOUth: Final report from Melbourne City Mission Youth Consultation,

[4] https://www.odsc.vic.gov.au/abuse-prevention/building-safe-and-respectful-cultures/

[5] https://captur3d.io/view/parliament-of-victoria/parliament-of-victoria-federation-room?m=e1UJGQMVJdW

[6] VCOSS, Walk alongside: Co-designing social initiatives with people experiencing vulnerabilities, 2015.

The findings are revealed within a comprehensive survey of counsellors undertaken by the sector’s representative body, Financial Counselling Victoria (FCVic).

“The problem is community need far outstrips the number of financial counsellors,” said Dr Sandy Ross, the FSVic Executive Officer.

The report, Counting The Costs, identified four key drivers behind an increase in both the volume and complexity of cases managed by financial counsellors:

1. An “explosion” in debt, low wages and stagnant incomes
2. The absence of a viable welfare safety net
3. The privatisation of essential services and utilities
4. Economic hardship fuelled by family violence.

“Simply put, financial hardship issues are increasing and cases are getting more difficult to resolve,” writes lead researcher Polly Bennett.

The report warns the sector is at a tipping point, noting that “demand simply cannot be met with current and foreseeable resources” and that financial counsellors might get hurt grappling with unrealistic workloads and pressures.

Some are already feeling the strain.

“There simply isn’t enough hours in the day,” one financial counsellor told researchers anonymously.

“You find yourself barely treading water.”

“I literally fall asleep the moment I get home from work so I am contributing very little to my family,” said another.

“I drink a lot of alcohol at home now, when prior to working as a financial counsellor I never had alcohol in the home.”

Attending launch of @FCVic_org_au report on stress and work loads among financial counsellors. Underscores need for much greater resourcing of financial counselling to support individuals and families with debt. pic.twitter.com/Ok2YFmkTvX

— Gerard Brody (@gerardbrody) February 4, 2020

Many counsellors work overtime in an attempt to work though outstanding cases, in some instances they’re driven by the fear of what will happen to people if their money matters aren’t resolved properly.

“The most critical clients may be at risk of suicide, homelessness or other harms,” the report warns. “Mistakes and delays can have truly dreadful consequences.”

Dr Ross describes this is a “significant psychological burden” on financial counsellors.

“They know full well the implications of not getting to all the people in hardship who seek assistance,” he said.

“So far, I haven’t made a major mistake but the fear is there.”

“They know full well the implications of not getting to all the people in hardship who seek assistance,” he said.

Counting The Costs contains specific recommendations for the Victorian Government, WorkSafe Victoria, counselling agencies, funding bodies and even financial counsellors themselves—who are urged to push “responsibility for meeting demand” back onto agencies and funding bodies.

But the central thrust is a call for the development of new funding, employment and practice systems “that more effectively manage burnout risks in the sector”.

• You can access the full report at fcvic.org.au