Thursday, 20 March 2025

 Ann-Marie HERMANS (South-Eastern Metropolitan) (23:35): (1541) My adjournment is for the Minister for Education. The action I seek is for him to take immediate steps to prioritise dealing with our rising crime rate in Victoria so that the community can feel safe on our streets and in their homes by reintroducing a more rigorous, effective police in schools program in all Victorian schools. The current program, according to the Community Advocacy Alliance, that Victoria Police operate is:

… a shadow of the real program and probably no more effective than no program. You can’t expect positive results from a spasmodic ‘half-hearted’ approach. The ‘when we have time to do it’ approach will not work.

The argument offered is that VicPol’s resources cannot support such a program, but we need to provide police with the resources to prioritise their connection with schools. Police have a model to address this issue, but the resources provided mean that they are stretched in providing enough police to make this model successful. The police schools engagement model was introduced in 2022. It involves specialist and frontline police officers delivering crime prevention and safety messages to primary and secondary students across the state. The program aims to identify opportunities to partner with educators and other services to address determinants of harm and to prevent harm before it occurs. We need urgent intervention to provide our children with positive role models and to help them to avoid the gang culture which facilitates a life of crime.

If I have a look at some of the statistics, we know, for instance, that the Herald Sun reported on 21 January 2025 that crime at schools is at a 10-year high, with classroom crimes hitting 120 a week. Figures released reveal more than a hundred kids aged between 10 and 17 years were involved in at least 30 crimes each in 2024, with that number tripling over the last five years. The 103 repeat offenders reported last year carried out at least 3090 crimes in 2024 alone, an average of eight offences per day. Crimes committed by children aged 10 to 17 shot up more than 20 per cent year on year, with more than 23,000 incidents recorded. This is not only highlighting the results but also highlighting a real problem of discipline. According to the Community Advocacy Alliance, the CAA, headed by former police commissioner Kel Glare:

These problems can’t be reasonably palmed off as crimes by others outside school hours; there is an inescapable nexus between the school environment and after-hours crime, for the most part.

The Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority’s latest National Report on Schooling in Australia has confirmed only 88 per cent of 15 to 19-year-old Victorians are participating in full-time education and/or work, the lowest rate since 2010. Only 59.7 per cent of year 1 to 10 Victorian students attended school more than 90 per cent of the time, down from over 80 per cent a decade ago. On average, Victorian students are missing seven additional days per year compared to pre-COVID levels.