New South Wales Launches Yet Another Crackdown on Youth Crime

The New South Wales Police Force launched yet another regional youth crime crackdown on 19 March 2025, as deputy commissioner Paul Pisanos told Nine’s Today that the new Operation Soteria has been put into effect to address what police see “as a rise in serious, young, violent, youth crime offenders, as young as 10”, who “have been committing the most violent crimes”.

Pisanos added that the first crackdown on regional youth crime was launched in September 2023, under Operation Mongoose, while the Minns government went on to roll out a legislative crackdown on specific youth crime in March last year, which has since seen a more than 80 percent rise in the number of alleged child offenders being refused bail.

“You’ve got to have the boots on the ground, you’ve got to have the teeth in order to handle them in the courts,” said Today host Karl Stefanovic in respect of the crackdown on 11- to 16-year-old kids, with particular attention given to “ringleaders” that Operation Soteria is purposed for. “There’s the story we’ve seen in Queensland, in Victoria of late, regional NSW, it’s everywhere,” the host added.

Aboriginal Legal Service NSW/ACT CEO Karly Warner pointed out in February that 88 percent of those then captured by the new laws had been First Nations kids, while they’d accounted for 90 percent of those incarcerated in respect to them, which is an aspect to the current nationwide crackdown on youth crime that the mainstream media tends to neglect to mention during reports.

But as similar youth crime and bail crackdowns have been increasingly legislated and rolled out nationwide over the last 24 months, the question that begs answering is why, when the research and civil society advocates have for years been raising the fact that imprisoning kids in purpose-built gaols simply propagates more offending, governments are continuing to take this failed approach?

“As young as 10”

“The operational arm of this operation will consist of high-visibility policing, targeting a defined cohort of hundreds of repeat offenders believed to be responsible for 90 percent of youth crime across regional NSW,” Pisanos told reporters, during the 19 March launch of Operation Soteria.

“This is about working to prevent, disrupt and respond to serious violent youth crime and reduce fear in the community,” the deputy continued.

Operation Soteria consists of 60 dedicated officers targeting “regional hotspots”, including Moree, Tamworth, Dubbo, Tweed Heads, Coffs Harbour, Kempsey, Taree and Newcastle over the next three months. An additional 20 officers will be on standby to assist during surge operations. And Soteria will oversee Operation Mongoose, which has been arresting 13 youths on average each week.

The NSW youth crime crackdown in north and western regional parts of the state has all the hallmarks of similar operations taking place across the nation, which includes disproportionate representation of Indigenous youth, an overall statewide reduction in youth crime, a focus on certain crimes, a rejection of raising the age of criminal responsibility, extreme bail laws and new offences.

“There is an identifiable cohort, roughly 80 to 100 ringleaders that are committing very, very serious offences,” Pisanos added in Dubbo last week, “kicking their way into people’s homes and committing really serious crime.”

Filling up NSW kiddie prisons

Passed in March last year, the Bail and Crimes Amendment Bill 2024 created two new youth crime laws. The first was the insertion of a temporary law into section 22C of the Bail Act 2013 (NSW), which targets kids aged 14 to 17, and it sees those who commit serious motor theft and break and enter crimes whilst on conditional release for a related crime, being refused bail and remanded.

The relevant offences that the bail refusal law applies to are taking a conveyance without consent, taking a motor vehicle with assault and stealing motor vehicle or vessel, along with serious break and enter offences carrying a penalty of least 14 years under part 4 division 4 of the Crimes Act 1900 (NSW), or to the commission of a performance crime involving one of the other relevant offences.

This bail law was supposed to sunset in April, after 12 months in operation, however the Minns government has resolved to extend the measure for another 36 months, because, according to major party politicians, a more than 80 percent rise in kids being refused bail, and therefore, being held on remand, which is time spent in prison prior to conviction or acquittal, is reason for celebration.

The second major reform consisted of the new offence of ‘performance crime’, which is contained in section 154 of the Crimes Act, and relates to teens committing the same relevant crimes, as noted above, and then ‘posting and boasting’ about them online. If a youth is found to have participated in such behaviour, it can add up to an additional 2 years to their overall prison sentence.

NSW premier Chris Minns told the press as he commenced his announcement of the youth crime package in March 2024, that this state would not be raising the age of criminal responsibility from its current limit of 10 years of age, and he did so in a manner that suggested local constituents would all breathe a sigh of relief to find that state law enforcement will continue to lock up 10-year-olds.

A national pastime

In its January annual human rights assessment of nations, Human Rights Watch called out Australia’s growing denial of the rights of children in its prisons, and it further underscored that of the 700-odd children in this nation’s gaols on any given day, about 60 percent of them are First Nations kids, even though they only account for 6 percent of the nation’s population in the 10 to 17 age bracket.

The nation’s youth crime crackdown began in Queensland in 2023, when the Palaszczuk government twice overrode that state’s Human Rights Act 2019 (QLD), so it could pass a teen breach of bail law and allow for the continuation of the locking up of kids in adult watchhouses, while the NT’s Finocchiaro ministry has created a presumption against youth bail and returned to spit hood use.

The new Queensland Crisafulli government went a step further late last year, when it enacted its “adult crime adult time” policy, which involves kids who commit 13 prescribed offences, now facing the same steeper penalties as adults. And Victoria jumped on the bandwagon after NSW last year, as it’s refused to raise the criminal age above 12 to a once promised 14.

The NT Justice Not Jails campaign has this week highlighted that since the Northern Territory courts have cut after hours bail services, it’s led to situations where youths are being locked in adult watchhouses for extended periods, waiting for their bail hearing, with a 15-year-old girl having spent over 48 hours in Palmerston Watchhouse late last week.

Victorian premier Jacinta Allan recently announced that she’d be passing “the toughest bail laws in Australia”, of which she succeeded in doing last Friday. The new laws include remand no longer being considered of “last resort” for kids, a new breach of bail law and a bail refusal law for being charged over a relevant offence whilst on bail for a relevant offence, which is similar to the NSW regime.

“This is a shameful kneejerk reaction from Jacinta Allan. It will damage more children’s lives, and it won’t make communities safer in the long term,” said Senator Lidia Thorpe in response to the new laws last week.

“The evidence clearly shows that supporting children and addressing disadvantage makes communities safer, while punitive approaches do the opposite.”

The Gunnai, Gunditjmara and Djab Wurrung woman further set out that she considers it necessary for the federal government to step in to ensure that the rights-eroding behaviour against youths being propagated in jurisdictions across the continent is brought to an end.

“The federal government must step in. The recent federal inquiry into child prisons revealed there are multiple levers that the federal government could use,” Senator Thorpe made certain last Wednesday.

“The inquiry heard clear evidence of widespread human rights abuses and overwhelming evidence that gaoling children does not reduce crime.”