Victoria’s strict new bail laws could turn prisons struggling to cope with the influx of criminals into ticking timebombs, authorities fear.
There are also concerns prison overcrowding and stretched resources could lead to ‘errors’ where violent offenders such as deranged killer Sean Price slip through the cracks.
Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan recently announced her government will rush through harsher bail laws making it more difficult for criminals to be released back into the community.
The bombshell announcement came after years of escalating crime including home invasions and carjackings committed by repeat offenders hit boiling point.
It’s also in response to Victoria’s youth crime epidemic which reached 23,810 incidents in 2023-2024 – the highest it has been since 2009 and a jump of almost 17 per cent on the previous 12 months.
Many of the home invasions, aggravated burglaries, car thefts, assaults, brawls and knife attacks in Victoria occur in Melbourne.
An incident involving five teens including a 13-year-old boy who were arrested and charged after an alleged carjacking and multiple burglaries in Melbourne’s east on February 11 made headlines prior to the law change.
The new laws will apply to violent and repeat offenders of all ages.
Another incident, just hours after Ms Allan’s bail law announcement, involved a 35-year-old Footscray man getting bail after he was charged with ramming a police car in Melbourne’s west.
Police had attempted to intercept the man’s silver Ford Ranger after officers spotted the accused driving erratically on the Princes Freeway near Laverton about 1am on March 12.
The harsher bail laws may have meant Sean Price would not have been free when he brutally stabbed Melbourne schoolgirl Masa Vukotic to death.
The 17-year-old Doncaster schoolgirl was stabbed 49 times by Price while walking through a park in Melbourne’s east 10 years ago on March 17, 2015.
But questions were also raised regarding how Victoria’s stretched correctional system allowed Price, a violent repeat sex offender, to live in the community without supervision after serving a jail term.
Former Supreme Court Justice Lex Lasry questioned why Price wasn’t held at notorious paedophile centre Corella Place infamously known as ‘The Village of the Damned’ after he was handed a 10-year supervision order.
Instead, Price, who pleaded guilty to murder and was jailed for life in 2016, was living alone and unsupervised on bail in what Justice Lasry termed a ‘catastrophic example of mismanagement’.
‘Whether on the part of the Department of Corrections or the Adult Parole Board, a decision was made to release you into the community and from the moment that regrettable decision was made the supervision order ceased to have any protective effect,’ Justice Lasry said during sentencing.
Bourke Street Mall mass murderer James Gargasoulas had been bailed just six days before he mowed down and killed six pedestrians during his terrifying Melbourne CBD rampage in January 2017.
The serial offender’s horrific crimes led to a review and tightening of bail laws before the Allan Government softened those laws in 2023.
As authorities scramble to get the new bails laws into affect a new problem regarding where to house all the alleged crooks has arisen.
Port Phillip Prison, a maximum-security prison in Melbourne’s west which holds between 650 and 700 inmates, is scheduled to close by the end this year.
Dhurringile Prison, formerly located near Shepparton, was closed for good in August last year.
According to Corrections Victoria, data prisoner population numbers at the Metropolitan Remand Centre and the Melbourne Assessment Prison have increased by more than 20 per cent in the last 12 months.
Many new remands are housed at MRC, MAP or Port Phillip and prisoners yet to be sentenced make up 2356 of total inmates.
Staffing issues at prisons is also a major issue with Corrections Victoria offering sign-on cash incentives up to $8,000 to entice new employees.
Corrections Victoria was allocated $1.8billion in the last budget while the state spent approximately $153,895 per prisoner per year or $422 per prisoner per day.
Victoria’s already stretched budget will be at bursting point if the expected influx of new prisoners is realised.
A former prison guard, who does not wish to be named, told The Daily Mail working conditions at jails were ‘just f*****’.
‘I got out, it was too hard, too rough, long hours for s**t pay and we were always short of staff,’ the former guard said.
Liberal shadow minister for police and corrections David Southwick told the Daily Mail he estimated the prison population will spike by 20 per cent when the new bail laws kick in.
Mr Southwick also said under-resourced prisons have ‘no staff’ and are ‘not equipped’ to deal with the expected influx.
‘Labor has failed to manage crime and Victorians are paying the price,’ Mr Southwick said.
‘Premier Jacinta Allan is backpedalling under pressure, making last-minute bail changes she doesn’t even believe in.
‘Labor is scrambling to address the crime crisis it created. Their bail backflip is about securing their political future, not about keeping Victorians safe.
‘Labor’s underfunded prisons are unprepared for this change. With closed facilities and a shortage of prison staff, it’s clear they haven’t thought this through.’
Mr Southwick also said ‘we can’t afford to make errors including early release’ which could lead to another Masa Vukotic tragedy.
“I think a big issue with overcrowding prisons is they become unsafe and harder to manage,’ he said.
‘We also can’t afford to make errors including early release because we don’t have enough beds available.
‘This is policy on the run which means we will all pay more in cost and our safety, over a year ago we pushed for change but Labor shut down the debate and shut down prison beds.’
Ms Allan, who denied her bail reforms were a political move, said her priority was ‘community safety above all’.
‘I have listened and I have acted,’ she said.
‘The tough bail laws will jolt the system, community safety above all, toughest bail laws ever and consequences for breaking the rules.’
AFL mega-WAG Bec Judd applauded the announcement on Wednesday but scolded former premier ‘the Dictator’ Daniel Andrews who she says could’ve saved lives if he fixed Melbourne’s crime scourge while in power.
The mother-of-four, who is married to former Carlton and West Coast star Chris Judd, has been a flag-bearer for fighting Victoria’s spiralling crime crisis and weak bail laws for several years.
‘Gee, this aged well,’ Judd posted on Instagram with an accompanying image of a 2022 story in which she warned Melbourne has a crime crisis.
‘Imagine the lives that could’ve been saved. Imagine the terror experienced by so many Victorians that could’ve been stopped if the Dictator had acted when I called this out.
‘Today Jacinta Allan has announced the toughest bail laws in the country. Yes it is too late for so many but it is a start. And mark my words, if the government stuffs this up again, I will continue to let everyone know about it.’