Youth crime & community safety

Where we stand

The first duty of the justice system is to protect the public. That means preventing young people from entering lives of crime where we can, but acting firmly when they do offend.

One Nation Tasmania wants fewer victims, fewer young people trapped in cycles of offending and safer communities. That requires strong families, real opportunities, clear boundaries and consequences that mean something.

Young Tasmanians should grow up with positive adult role models, pride in themselves and their community, useful skills and a realistic pathway into work and adult life. When children begin disengaging from school, becoming involved in violence or antisocial behaviour, or heading towards crime, parents, schools and government should intervene before those behaviours become entrenched.

But early intervention cannot become another excuse for avoiding accountability. Trauma, disadvantage, disability, addiction or family dysfunction may help explain offending. They do not excuse it, erase responsibility or diminish the rights of the person harmed.

For too long, youth justice policy has been built around avoiding consequences. Minimise intervention. Avoid detention. Give another chance. Explain the behaviour. Too often, repeat offenders learn that breaches, defiance and further offending produce little more than another warning or referral.

One Nation Tasmania rejects that approach.

Our starting point is the victim. Our test is simple: will this make Tasmanians safer? Every offence should bring a meaningful response. Offend again and the response should escalate. Breach bail or deliberately ignore court conditions and there should be a consequence. Commit serious or violent crime and the safety of the community must come first.

A first mistake should not unnecessarily become a criminal career. But a repeat offender should not be treated as though every offence is their first.

Parents have responsibilities. Schools must be able to impose discipline. Police must be able to enforce the law. Custodial staff must be able to maintain control. Courts must have the power to impose sanctions, including detention where necessary, that reflect the seriousness and persistence of offending.

Young people who genuinely change should have a pathway back through education, skills, work, treatment where needed and responsible participation in community life.

We will give young people a chance to build a future, but never at the expense of another Tasmanian's right to be safe.

The issues

Tasmanians are increasingly concerned about youth crime, antisocial behaviour and disorder in their communities. Violence and bullying are disrupting classrooms. Workers and businesses are dealing with abuse, intimidation, theft and damage. Families are seeing the consequences in shopping centres, public places and their own neighbourhoods.

The problem is particularly concentrated among serious repeat offenders. Tasmania Police reported that just 57 young people accounted for half of all youth crime charges in Tasmania in 2024. When such a small group can repeatedly cycle through police, courts and government services while continuing to offend, the system is not working.

Part of the problem is that consequences have become too easy to ignore. When repeated offending, bail breaches, defiance of authority or blatant antisocial behaviour are met with another warning, referral or chance, some young offenders learn that the boundaries are not real. A justice system that is reluctant to impose consequences can be exploited by those who have no intention of changing their behaviour.

Serious offending rarely begins with the fiftieth charge. It often starts much earlier with truancy, bullying, theft, violence, school disengagement and repeated defiance of authority. Early intervention matters, but intervention without accountability is not enough. Tasmania needs to act earlier, restore adult authority and make clear that offending has consequences.

Our priorities

1. Bring back consequences. Rewrite the Youth Justice Act so criminal behaviour brings a meaningful consequence and repeated offending triggers progressively stronger sanctions. Remove the blanket requirement to treat detention as a last resort and ensure courts can use detention where necessary to protect the public, hold offenders accountable and stop persistent offending.
2. Make bail mean something. Strengthen bail laws and supervision for serious and repeat offenders, with strict conditions, enforceable curfews, active monitoring and swift consequences for breaches. Commit another serious offence while on bail and the bar for release should become substantially higher.
3. Intervene early. Act earlier on truancy, bullying, school disengagement, antisocial behaviour and other warning signs, while restoring discipline, strengthening parental responsibility and expanding pathways into practical education, training, employment, mentoring, sport and community participation. Young Tasmanians should have something positive to work towards and clear expectations about how they behave.
4. No blanket age immunity. Reject blanket increases to the minimum age of criminal responsibility or detention until Tasmania has a properly funded, proven and enforceable alternative capable of safely managing children who commit serious violent, sexual or weapons offences. Do not remove the ability of police, courts and government to intervene before a credible replacement exists.
5. Keep Ashley open. Do not close Ashley Youth Detention Centre until its replacement is built, staffed, tested and demonstrably capable of safely managing Tasmania's actual youth detention population, including surges in demand and the need to separate incompatible young people.
6. Back the frontline. Back police, teachers and custodial staff to maintain order and deal firmly with violent, threatening and persistently disruptive behaviour. Remove unnecessary policies that prevent reasonable intervention, give trained workers clear powers to enforce directions and restrain dangerous behaviour where necessary, and back them when they act lawfully and reasonably.
7. Put victims first. Put victims back at the centre of youth justice by giving them timely information, a genuine opportunity to be heard and greater recognition of the harm caused when decisions are made. Victims should never be expected to change their lives because the system is unwilling or unable to deal adequately with the person harming them.
8. Put parents back in the room. Require parents and guardians to participate when their child enters formal intervention, diversion or supervision, and make parental responsibility enforceable. Capable parents who repeatedly and wilfully refuse to engage, comply with reasonable requirements or take responsibility for their child's behaviour should face consequences of their own.

What this means for Tasmanians

For victims and their families: the justice system will stop treating you as an afterthought. Preventing the next victim will matter more than avoiding consequences for the offender.

For the community: your home, car and personal safety will not be treated as acceptable collateral damage while a known serious offender cycles through another failed response.

For teachers, police and frontline workers: you will be trusted to exercise lawful authority, backed when you act reasonably, and no longer expected to tolerate dangerous behaviour without meaningful intervention.

For responsible parents and young people: help will be available when things begin to go wrong, but boundaries will mean something, deliberate breaches will have consequences and repeated serious offending will bring a substantially stronger response.

Your right to be safe comes before an offender's right to another chance.

What comes next

This baseline policy sets out where One Nation Tasmania stands and the priorities that will guide our detailed youth crime and community safety policy.

We will develop specific commitments through consultation with victims, families, police, teachers, frontline workers, legal and justice practitioners, community organisations and people with direct experience of youth offending and rehabilitation.

Further policy releases will examine bail, sentencing, prescribed offences, parental responsibility, school discipline and attendance, frontline authority, youth detention, early intervention and rehabilitation.

If you have been affected by youth crime, work on the frontline, have experience helping young people turn their lives around, or simply believe Tasmanians have a right to feel safe in their homes and communities, we want to hear from you.