Wednesday, 29 October 2025

 David LIMBRICK (South-Eastern Metropolitan) (18:52): (2060) My adjournment item is for the Minister for Police. I recently had a long conversation with a person who is passionate about crime prevention and who has enormous expertise and experience working with young offenders in south-east Melbourne. To summarise a long conversation, he said that the majority of offending was done by a tiny percentage of young people. He told me the problem of repeat offending can be boiled down to offenders not being held accountable. Whilst there need to be major reforms to the system to increase accountability, I asked him what was one practical thing that we could do to help. He said that police engagement programs in schools should be expanded to involve 13- and 14-year-olds. Having a police officer give young people an early warning about what lies ahead or tell them about support services available could stop them from jumping into the revolving door of crime. This would be a small investment in time and resources that could divert some young people from serial offending. My request for action is to expand police engagement programs in schools for 13- and 14-year-old children.