Media Release
Embargoed until 00:01 a.m. (AEST) Thursday 26 June 2025
A new report by the Sentencing Advisory Council has found that very few cases sentenced in Victoria involve an offence committed by a child aged 10 to 13 (0.32% of all cases in the 10 years to 30 June 2021).* Further, only 0.02% (1 in 5,000) involved an offence committed by a child aged 10 to 11.
The report, Sentencing Younger Children’s Offending in Victoria, follows the introduction of numerous reforms in the new Youth Justice Act 2024, such as raising the age of criminal responsibility to 12, and various measures for children aged 12 and 13 aimed at addressing the causes of their offending. The report is intended to assist with the implementation and monitoring of the new Youth Justice Act by providing information about the age and gender of young children who offend, the offences they commit, and the sentencing outcomes they receive.
In the report, the Council finds that children from regional Victoria are overrepresented among young children in the justice system. In regional Victoria, 11% of Children’s Court cases involve an offence by a child aged 10 to 13, which is double the rate of similar cases in metropolitan Melbourne (5.5%).
Aboriginal children are also overrepresented, comprising 32.2% of children sentenced for offences committed aged 10 to 11, 27.5% of children aged 12, and 21.1% of children aged 13. In comparison, Aboriginal children comprised 10.3% of children aged 14 or older and only 2.2% of children aged 10 to 13 in the general Victorian population in 2021.
Other key findings include:
- age and gender: most offences committed by sentenced younger children were committed when the child was aged 13 (75% of 16,913 charges), and most children were male (74% of 1,891 people)
- jurisdiction: most cases involving younger children’s offending were sentenced in the Children’s Court (98%, or 2,894 of 2,949 cases). In 55 cases, however, adults were sentenced for offences they committed aged 10 to 13 because their age meant they were no longer eligible to be sentenced in the Children’s Court. In most of those cases, the offending was sentenced many years later, with one person aged 67 at sentencing
- time from offence to sentencing: for children who offended aged 10 to 13, the median time between the earliest offence in their case and sentencing was 8 months. The younger children were at their earliest offence, the longer the average time between offending and sentencing
- offence types: the most common offence by children aged 10 to 13 was theft, accounting for 30% of offences by children aged 10 to 13, with property damage accounting for a further 14%
- sentencing outcomes: younger children tended to receive less severe sentencing outcomes than older children. Children aged 10 to 11 at the time of their offending received the highest rates of diversion, dismissals and undertakings, whereas children aged 12 and then 13 received increasingly more severe sentencing outcomes, such as probation and youth supervision orders
- youth detention: younger children were very rarely sentenced to youth detention, with no children aged 10 to 11 at the time of their principal offence receiving a custodial sentence. Youth detention was imposed on three children aged 12 at the time of their principal offence and on 27 children aged 13 at the time of their principal offence.
Quotes Attributable to Sentencing Advisory Council Director Stan Winford
‘This report highlights the very small proportion of Victorian offenders who are aged 10 to 13, with less than 1 in 300 cases involving offences by children in this age group. When younger children do offend, their offending is typically less serious than that of older children or adults. Not one child in this age group was sentenced for a homicide offence, and theft offences were the most common offence type, accounting for 30% of younger children’s charges. Of those who were sentenced for assault offences, the vast majority were less serious (summary) assault offences.’
‘The less serious nature of younger children’s offending is further reflected in the sentence types imposed on them. Very few received a term of detention, and none were aged 10 or 11. It was far more common for younger children to receive diversion, probation or some form of undertaking. Not only are these sentencing outcomes consistent with the less serious nature of their offending, but they’re also consistent with decades of research showing the importance of effectively addressing the causes of children’s offending to make the Victorian community safer in the long term.’
Sentencing Younger Children’s Offending in Victoria will be available to download from our website on the morning of 26 June 2025.
About the Sentencing Advisory Council: the Council is an independent statutory body established in 2004. It has a number of legislative functions, including conducting research on sentencing, consulting on sentencing matters, publishing sentencing statistics, and advising the Attorney-General on sentencing matters.
*While diversion is not a sentencing outcome, it is an important disposition available in the Children’s Court and Magistrates’ Court, and cases resulting in diversion are included among ‘sentenced cases’ in the report.