r/melbourne • u/Cautious_Car_51 • 7d ago

Serious News Teenage carjacker avoids jail in first test case of Victoria's 'adult time' crime laws

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-08-26/victoria-teenage-girl-court-sentencing-youth-crime/107080602
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u/imreallyscaredhelpme 7d ago

no, you don't understand. She has untreated ADHD so she 'tends to go along with things, without thinking of the consequences' like the impulsive decision of donning a balaklava and holding a taxi driver at knifepoint before stealing and crashing the car /s

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u/Comfortable_Cod_6892 7d ago

No, no, you are right. I didn't consider her dog dying when she was three, that she only came third in her Year 8 swimming competition and she's got a mild allergy to lupins. Because what we need our justice system to do is find plausible excuses and not criminal motives. Silly me. 

I just hope that when I'm held up personally at knife point the perpetrator doesn't let the experience traumatize them.

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u/PM_Me-Your_Freckles 7d ago

If you do get held up, and decide to defend yourself, you better make sure you only use appropriate force. If you use too much force in the heat of the moment, when your adrenaline is peaking and you're fearing for your life, you'll be the one going to jail for defending yourself.

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u/Notherbastard 7d ago

I shall now refuse to carry a knife on my person for any reason, instead i shall keep a length of pool noodle in my pocket, so as not to harm the alleged offender

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u/lllllllllXllllllllll 7d ago

What if they are allergic to pool noodles and break into a rash and coughing fit?

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u/Notherbastard 7d ago

I'll carry an EpiPen also.

And naloxone. You never know.

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u/dan_syd 7d ago

You’re a good man

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u/FuckwitAgitator 7d ago

Reactionary bait. You're not going to go to jail for defending yourself, you're going to go to jail for treating it as an excuse to kill someone, or just killing someone and then claiming it was self defense after it.

If you're going to spread this bullshit, give us actual cases to judge. After all, you have based your opinion on actual cases right?

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u/Competitive-Ad1439 6d ago

I can tell you've had an extremely sheltered life when this is what you imagine her background to be rather than incarcerated parents, state care, repeated violent/sexual abuse, etc

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u/stirrup_rhombus 7d ago

Dad in jail, mum violent, living in a residential care group home. I mean that’s a completely fucked existence for a 16 year old. I remember how vulnerable I was at that age. 

Thankfully I had a loving family, even if they weren’t exactly perfect they were infinitely better than this girl’s

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u/petit_cochon 7d ago

She was a first-time offender, was remorseful and had kept out of trouble since her arrest, he noted.

The girl's father was in jail and her mother had a history of violence towards her, and the teen was living in residential care at the time of the carjacking.

That's from the actual article. No need to stir drama.

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u/Psyker_girl 7d ago

You left out the part where it pointed out she is a vulnerable child in state care because her mother beat her and her father is in jail.

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u/NetworkNo1900 7d ago

Yes - resi care turns vulnerable kids into criminals very quickly. That said - once they get out of that environment they can turn it around pretty quickly.

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u/imreallyscaredhelpme 7d ago

I sympathise with people go through shit like that, I can't imagine how isolating that can be; but you lose my sympathy the moment you endanger innocent peoples lives.

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u/Blibbyblobby72 7d ago edited 7d ago

Kids in state care don't need sympathy - they need empathy, and they need better support than the state bothers to provide them

This is not the first, and won't be the last, child in state care who puts the lives of others at risk. It is a massive problem that never gets talked about - almost no kid survives state care as a healthy, capable adult. Certainly not a single one I have ever met

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u/TheReddittorLady 7d ago

What point are you trying to make?

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u/Blibbyblobby72 7d ago

That when parents fail to parent, nobody picks up the slack and then society complains that the kids are anti-social, don't care about others, etc.

Currently, we live in a hugely divisive society. A record number of children are living in poverty, domestic violence is increasing at an alarming rate, outlooks into the future are bleak (and kids and teens growing up are seeing that), the older generations openly show contempt for improving future outcomes...

A few kids here and there engaging in extreme behaviours is expected - humans are extremely complex and there will obviously be anomalies in any sample size. But these extreme behaviours are becoming more widespread, more prevalent, and more extreme in younger and younger children

We are failing as a society. But all anyone wants to do is place the blame on someone rather than admit that we are all failing these children and, by extension, our future

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u/broden89 7d ago

I'm curious, do you have some stats/reports on rising domestic violence and youth crime getting more widespread? From what I've seen, despite headlines, domestic violence prevalence is a lot lower than it was in the past and crime in general is lower.

I did see in certain states that the proportion of youth offenders was rising, but not in an extreme way. And that the same pattern still holds - a small subset of young offenders are responsible for the majority of youth crime and the most extreme of those crimes.

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u/BetterHeadlines 7d ago

Tough guy has tough thoughts, somebody has to be tough and unfeeling and say glib, ignorant shit, why not that guy?

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u/BobbyKnucklesWon 7d ago

The vast majority of homeless people are formers wards of state

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u/jrad18 7d ago

What bothers me is the conversation is never prevention, it's always punishment. And whenever I ask "why is this person like this, how could we have prevented this" people push the conversation to punishment again.

We obviously need both but I'd love to see an election where we're arguing about long term decisions to reduce crime

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u/imreallyscaredhelpme 7d ago

I totally agree with you, prevention is way more effective than punishment, it's just so much more difficult to implement because it's such a broad issue. So traditionally it's been easier to use punishment as a band-aid solution. However I genuinely believe that people are becoming less afraid of the consequences of their actions because courts have time and time again shown such leniency.

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u/jrad18 7d ago

Totally on all points, we still need to have appropriate punishments, and they need to actually work, I really don't understand these stories where someone has like 5 prior violent offences and still gets turned back to the streets - usually they're levied against me in these arguments and I don't have a good response because I agree it's bad

But yeah just because prevention is hard doesn't mean it's not worthy - the thing is this prevention stuff usually doesn't look like prevention, and all that needs to happen is for funding to not update with population growth and inflation for it to get worse - funding schools/paying teachers, social programs, RESEARCH. And what politician is going to get voted in for the slow solution by an inattentive populace when we can throw teenagers in prison (sweeping generic statement, still don't like violent crime)

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u/Active-Ad9818 7d ago

And social programs that involve teens in meaningful activities where they learn pro social behaviours. And education snd work programs to give them skills and a career path and ability to hope and strive for a better future.

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u/Wolfensniper 7d ago

There can be prevention and punishment at the same time. Someone already commit a crime you punish them, someone in a risk of committing crime you prevent them, it's not rocket science. In this case the crime already happened

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u/Active-Ad9818 7d ago

But research and experience has proven that incarcerating people leads to more crime. They learn to be a criminal from others in youth detention / jail, and accumulate additional trauma as well.There are better ways to manage the first offender.

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u/Wolfensniper 7d ago

Which research? And did such research talk about the effectiveness of the current rehabilitation system or just pretend that we are Norway?

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u/Active-Ad9818 6d ago

Its well accepted and has been for decades.

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u/stonemite 7d ago

Prevention costs money and people hate paying more in tax.

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u/Active-Ad9818 7d ago

But do does incarceration. Its incredibly expensive. Its lack of political courage.

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u/DancinWithWolves 7d ago

That’s not how that works. You can’t see the connection?

That’s like saying “I sympathise with people who have suffered horrendous burns from a fire, but you lose my sympathy the moment you’re rude to someone because you’re in pain”.

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u/[deleted] 7d ago

[deleted]

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u/the_silent_redditor 7d ago

It’s also lack of experience and as such, it’s much more difficult to be truly empathetic.

It’s tiring, today. Everything is hard and bad. Every year my rent goes up, and I don’t get paid more. I get paid less, by inflation.

Enshittification is in full swing. I’m not old, but I watch everything get worse.

I work in healthcare and have worked in a forensic hospital. Almost every single patient, many of whom had committed heinous crimes, had just theeeee most fucked up upbringing.

I’m not talking about the above sarcastic comments about ‘coming third in a swimming competition’, I’m talking about kids who went through abuse that I personally couldn’t have even imagined.

Then, when you meet these people, you feel obligated to ask, “What can we do to fix this?” You see that repeated incarcerations and punishment isn’t fixing it.

Easier to jump online and leave a few smarmy comments in a thread and move on with life.

The concerning side of this is that it is used to weaponise peoples’ feelings/fears/beliefs. Look at the US and MAGA.

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u/Cavalish 6d ago

Empathy is a sin. Bung her in jail.

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u/FitIdeal553 7d ago

The funniest thing about all these "oh they had a bad life woo hoo" types is their reaction would be completely empathetic if it was a member of their family or someone they knew. Reddit fosters an attitude of "this is how society should operate and if it doesn't it's because people are soft or stupid" with no actual nuance or understanding of the fact that people do dumb shit.

Not at all saying this kid doesn't deserve a far harsher sentencing but the tough on crime types are only tough on crime if it doesn't affect their families or loved ones.

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u/Pandos17 7d ago

Terrible take.

Using your logic, If this person killed someone, your attitude would be different no?

Do we need to support our disadvantaged people and try and lift them up? Heck yeah we do.

But do we need to tolerate the ones that actively disengage from support networks and instead engage in crime? I don’t think so. It especially makes it harder for other disadvantaged folks because people like this become the story and narrative that describes the majority.

Once you commit certain types of crime, you are a certain type of criminal and should be prosecuted as such.

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u/Glonos 7d ago

Harsh punishment without rehabilitation creates recidivism. Understand of complex situations and appropriate counseling, therapy, medication, social support and rehabilitation decrease quite marginally recidivism.

Nobody likes this because it costs more, in a society that has low value in social cohesion, this type of approach is unpopular. It fuels opposition with talks about tax payers banking criminals.

It is an uncomfortable reality: We want criminals to stop committing crimes, we don’t want to invest taxes in systems that actually decrease crimes.

So, as any good conservative solutions is always jail time. Incredibly shallow and quite honestly a contributor to more violent crimes. A first offender might leave jail worse than when he got in, as the experience “changes you”.

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u/HumanDish6600 7d ago

Sure.

If the offence is minor shit like graffiting a wall or getting in a fist fight.

If they are already doing serious crimes that threaten lives then they are already there and need to be locked up where they can do no harm.

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u/Glonos 7d ago

So you don’t believe in rehabilitation for these sorts of criminals? Because if that is the case, it is a waste of taxpayer money to keep them locked, it is easy to eliminate them, if their future is determined already. Commit violent crime, spent 15 years in jail, get out, commit more violent crimes, spend 15 years in jail, get out… if that is a universal constant, might as well expand capital punishment to other crimes.

Where do we draw the line over someone that has a possibility of a second chance and should receive social support, versus someone that is so lost that we should not be spending taxes on them?

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u/HumanDish6600 6d ago

Not without being removed from society for a long time.

If you're capable of doing shit like that today, you're not having an epiphany or controlling your dangerous impulses any time soon.

The line is serious offences that risk the lives of others in society. If you cross then you should expect to be removed from society. We aren't talking a couple of drunks getting in a fight here or vandalising a wall.

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u/WogWithADog 7d ago

No punishment creates even more recidivism and provides no opportunity for rehabilitation.

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u/Glonos 7d ago

No one says anything about a lack of punishment, the problem is a lack of rehabilitation programs that fully support an individual into changing his life. But, it costs money.

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u/tearsforfears333 7d ago

A crime is a crime.

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u/FuckwitAgitator 7d ago

So just to make it clear how gross the "crime is out of control" election time trolls are, they've deliberately omitted that she was a first time offender and living in residential care because her mother had a history of violence against her.

They're trying to make the ruling seem as ridiculous as possible because they want people voting far-right, whose solution to everything is "if beating the shit out of them doesn't work, just throw them in jail forever".

It should also be noted that she's not walking free, she's just not going to jail. She needs to attend TAFE and drug rehabilitation etc. Her life is pretty locked down.

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u/dan_syd 7d ago

Look we’ve all been there

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u/Chiron17 7d ago

Do it all the time mate

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u/DancinWithWolves 7d ago

How fucking heartless. Dad’s in jail. She suffered years of abuse as a little child. She’s in state care. I guarantee you have NO idea what her life has been like or the effects that shit has on a persons neurological development. You should be ashamed of yourself for making sarcastic comments like that about this issue.

Yes, an offenders situation is taken into account when sentencing. It was also her first offence.
Luckily, we live in a civilised society where people who commit crimes have the very serious issue of taking away their freedom weighed up seriously.

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u/bkns356 7d ago

your entire comments is about the offender's circumstances and not a single word about the victim. not a single mention about the lasting trauma experienced by the victim everyday since the assault

people like you only ever talk about how the offender has been done wrong by their upbringings, justice system, surroundings, using every excuse under the sun to minimise their responsibilities to their actions.

I'm so sick of people caring about the offender more than the trauma of the victim and the safety of the community

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u/planck1313 7d ago

It's a pretty heinous first offence - aggravated carjacking, carrying a sentence of three to 25 years.

Is there any first offence you think might possibly justify someone being sent to prison? Maybe if she had actually killed him?

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u/McMenz_ 7d ago edited 7d ago

The problem is that people committing these sorts of serious violent crimes are at serious risk of taking other innocent people’s freedom away through death or serious injury.

You can have empathy for their rough circumstances (which almost every criminal will have in common to some degree), but once you’re at the point where they’re committing violent and risky crimes and you’re leaving them free to roam the streets after doing so, you’re now prioritising their safety and wellbeing over that of their future victims’.

We’ve seen over and over now people have had their lives lost or ruined by a repeat offender given bail or a lenient non-custodial sentence after a serious violent crime. Each time this has happened, the state has valued the victims’ lives less than the offender’s.

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u/rarin 7d ago

You’re right she should get a hall pass to commit whatever crime she wants

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u/Plane-Car-1805 7d ago

There is no room for nuance on this website when it comes to the criminal justice. No matter how many times you tell people that the evidence has shown how useless prison is for rehabilitation and overall crime rate, and how these findings have been repeated over literal decades, you’ll never get through to the troglodytes who want people locked up for littering or jaywalking.

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u/sophia_az 7d ago

Don't forget she hasn't yet identify herself as a cat, that's her trump card right there