Launch Housing joins many human rights, legal, community, and First Nations organisations to oppose the Victorian Government’s new youth justice laws which allow children as young as 14 to be sentenced as adults. The Adult Time for Violent crime laws are unacceptable and harmful. Children do not belong in prison, and no child should ever receive a life sentence.
As a major provider of specialist homelessness support and community housing, including to many young people and families with children, we know the impact that poverty, housing instability, and homelessness can have for young people which may contribute to their entry into the justice system. Through the work we do, we also know the lifelong impact of the trauma of encountering the justice system.
Launch Housing stands for evidence-based and child-centred approaches. Reforms like this will lead to an increase in harm and homelessness.
Children in the justice system need support, not punishment. They need safe housing, family and community connection, education, mental health care, and culturally appropriate services. Evidence shows these measures reduce reoffending and help young people thrive.
We especially stand against the impact that these reforms will have on First Nations children.
First Nations peoples are already dramatically overrepresented in prisons, driven by intergenerational trauma, systemic racism, poverty, and the failure to provide culturally safe support. These reforms will deepen that injustice and perpetuate the cycle of trauma for First Nations families and communities, with impacts that will echo for generations.
In the context of treaty and truth telling we are concerned about the impact of these new laws on future dispossession and trauma. As a Friend of Treaty, Launch Housing stands with the First Peoples’ Assembly of Victoria and Aboriginal organisations in calling for prevention, not punishment.
Incarceration does not rehabilitate—it isolates. We urge the Victorian Government to reverse these reforms and invest further in community-led solutions that heal, not harm.
Choose justice, not harm. Choose housing, family support, and prevention.
