Rising Repeat Offences Among Victorian Youth: Why the Cycle Is Getting Harder to Break

On Sunday, 25 May, shoppers at the Northland Shopping Centre in Melbourne bore unintended witness to a most unsettling scene, as two rival, machete-armed youth gangs clashed in a planned fight.

Police moved quickly, arresting seven young men aged between 15 and 21. All were already known to police, with several either on bail or subject to a good behaviour bond at the time. The incident was shocking. But what it was not, is unprecedented or surprising. In fact, it is emblematic of a wider trend: a small but persistent group of young Victorians who are committing serious offences, again and again and again.

The Numbers

Youth offences have risen 60% in just two years.

Recent data, reported by the ABC, paints a stark picture. In 2024, there were 20,753 incidents involving youth offenders in Victoria. In 2022, that number was closer to 13,000, meaning an increase of nearly 60% in just two years. Most tellingly, during the same period, the actual number of individual youth offenders actually dropped slightly, to 6,137.

The conclusion is stark and unavoidable: fewer young people are offending, but those who do are offending much more often, now at unprecedented rates.

When you look at the types of crimes, the imbalance becomes even clearer. Youth account for only 10% of all offenders, yet commit nearly half of aggravated burglaries and more than a quarter of all car thefts in the state.

We can no longer ignorantly espouse the “occasional mistake” narrative. It’s a clear pattern of repeat, high-impact crime from a small pool of offenders.

The Policy Response So Far

In August 2024, the Allan government announced reforms to the youth justice system, passed in December. They included: tighter bail laws for repeat offenders and an electronic monitoring trial for up to 50 high-risk youth offenders.

The aim was clear: stop repeat offending by identifying the most persistent offenders and intervening earlier and more decisively.

Yet, less than six months later, incidents like the Northland machete fight (which included multiple participants already on bail) have prompted Premier Jacinta Allan to flag further bail law reviews. The reforms were meant to be a turning point. Instead, the government is back at the drawing board.

The Repeat Offence Problem Is Different

The problem isn’t just “bad choices”. It’s environments and systems that allow those same choices to be made again and again without meaningful change.

First-time youth offending often has immediate, situational causes: a fight outside a school, shoplifting with friends, or a dare gone wrong. Our youth justice system is generally built to address these with proportionate consequences and rehabilitative support.

But repeat offending is a different beast entirely, especially repeat offending on the scale we are now seeing. It indicates that the interventions in place aren’t breaking the cycle.

Possible contributing factors include:

• Lack of effective rehabilitation: Programs that don’t address root causes such as unstable housing, family violence, or disengagement from school.

• Persistent peer influence: Returning to and remaining in the same social circles that encourage criminal behaviour.

• Identity and belonging: For many, gang membership offers structure, loyalty, and recognition that they perhaps can’t find elsewhere.

• Inadequate monitoring: Young people may leave custody or complete a program without sufficient follow-up support.

The problem isn’t just “bad choices”. It’s environments and systems that allow those same choices to be made again and again without meaningful change.

The Gang Factor

The Northland fight has been officially linked to a rivalry between youth gangs, and this is no coincidence. Police operations like Operation Alliance have been established specifically to target gang activity.

In the past year alone, Operation Alliance arrested 473 youth gang members a total of 1,731 times, with more than 4,400 charges laid. That’s an average of well over three arrests per person. The stubborn persistence of these numbers suggests that gang membership functions as more than just a criminal network. It is also:

• A social safety net for young people with little family or community support.

• A status system, where criminal activity boosts reputation.

• A financial pathway in the absence of stable, legitimate income.

Until the incentives and sense of identity offered by gangs can be eliminated or replaced by something equally compelling, arrests alone are unlikely to change behaviour.

The Bigger Picture

Victoria now faces a choice in addressing repeat youth offending:

1. Double down on deterrence with longer sentences, tighter bail, and stricter supervision.

2. Rebuild the preventative net, investing heavily in education, youth services, mental health support, and employment pathways for at-risk youth.

The obvious truth is, both will be necessary. A purely punitive model risks hardening young offenders and only embedding them ever deeper in criminal networks. A purely rehabilitative model, without accountability, risks emboldening those who already see the justice system as toothless.

Internationally, successful approaches have combined swift, certain consequences with intensive, personalised rehabilitation programs. These are costly and resource-intensive. But in the long run surely they will be cheaper than the repeated policing, court, and incarceration costs of chronic youth offending.

Beyond the Headlines

The Northland machete fight is a sensational story, evidenced by the widespread coverage it has received. But the more worrying trend is quieter: a relatively small group of young people cycling in and out of the justice system, each time leaving not with changed hearts but with deeper ties to criminal peers.

If the system cannot turn even a fraction of these young people around, the numbers suggest the problem will escalate. And without public confidence in the justice system’s ability to respond, political pressure for harsher measures will mount.

The challenge for Victoria, and the country as a whole, is not simply to respond to each machete fight, burglary, or car theft as it happens. It is to find some way to finally break the pattern that makes the next Northland incident inevitable.