MELBOURNE, 13 November, 2025: Youth gang recruiters in Victoria face life imprisonment, the maximum penalty for this crime is currently ten years.
Under the new law, the penalty will increase to 15 years across the board, with a new aggravated offence applying a maximum life sentence for adults who recruit a child to serious and violent offending such as aggravated home invasions or aggravated carjacking.
Premier Jacinta Allan says, “Children are getting exposed to shocking violence online every day. Without firm boundaries at home and school, some become targets for organised crime gangs who pull them into a world of violence. It’s a tragedy for those kids, and even more so for the innocent people they harm.”
“If you turn a child to a life of violence, I think you should spend your life in jail. This is not about an excuse for violent children. They’ll face serious consequences with adult time for violent crime. This is about targeting the evil adult puppet-masters pulling the strings.”
“Imposing a life sentence for this heinous crime is the first shot in this fight back – and our rallying principle to bring together government, police, industry and community to
understand how existing laws and ways of working aren’t keeping up with rapidly changing technology, and how to improve them and determine who else can be involved to support the long-term collective approach, including to drive early intervention and reduce violence long-term. We will also look at what additional consequences the social media and online giants should face for allowing this recruitment to happen so blatantly on their platforms,” says a media release from Jacinta Allan MP – Premier of Victoria.
Attorney-General Sonya Kilkenny says, “A life sentence for these violent youth crime recruiters isn’t the end of this fight back, it’s just the beginning. As the experts say, we need a whole-of-society approach involving the whole country, and Victoria wants to lead it.”
“The extraordinary words of the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission should focus the minds of every authority in Australia on the threat of organised crime recruiting children into violence.”
