Children as young as 14 who commit “serious crimes” will be sentenced as adults under a Victorian government plan to combat youth crime that has sparked fierce rebuke from human rights and Indigenous advocacy groups.

The state government said on Wednesday that it would adopt “adult time for violent crime” laws similar to those in Queensland, which implemented the tough approach in 2024.

Children of 14 could be tried in adult courts and possibly face life sentences under the proposed changes, to be announced by the premier on Wednesday.

“We’re introducing Adult Time for Violent Crime,” Jacinta Allan announced in a social media post.

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A former chair of the Law Institute of Victoria’s criminal law section, Mel Walker, described the proposal as “extraordinary, bad policy and counterintuitive”.

“As a community, are we content to deal with children in that way, and in how many years in the future, when they’re affected in such a profound way by going into adult custody, are we prepared for those consequences?” Walker told ABC radio Melbourne.

Walker said a high percentage of children coming before the courts had been exposed to family violence or had violence perpetrated upon them, or were being managed by child protection services with little or no family support.

“There’s a real sense of a want of belonging by a lot of these children, which motivates their involvement,” she said.

“But they don’t have the capacity … for this consequential thinking, because obviously and legitimately, their brains are just simply underdeveloped.”

The state’s opposition leader, Brad Battin, said the premier had no credibility and that Victorians can’t trust her to deliver what she promises.

“Today’s announcement is the premier chasing another headline with no plan to follow through and deliver,” Battin said.

Victoria has been in the grip of surging crime rates, with criminal offences spiking by 15.7% in the year to mid-2025, fuelled by thefts, home invasions and repeat youth offenders.

About 1,100 youths aged between 10 and 17 were arrested a combined 7,000 times, according to the latest crime statistics, as Victoria police declared children were quickly turning to extreme violence.

Queensland implemented its tougher “adult crime, adult time” laws in response to a 17-year-old teenager fatally stabbing Emma Lovell in a home invasion in 2022.

That legislation allows for youth offenders to face a mandatory life sentence for serious offences such as murder, with a minimum of 20 years before parole.

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Monique Hurley, an associate legal director at the Human Rights Law Centre, said “reckless laws” did not work or make communities safe and called on the government to scrap the proposed plan.

“Children deserve care, not cages and adult prison sentences,” she said. “The Allan Government’s proposed laws will condemn children as young as 14 to irreversible harm and an incredibly bleak future behind bars.”

“In an alarming race to the bottom, the Allan Government is copying the Crisafulli Government’s harmful youth justice laws in Queensland – laws so extreme that they required Queensland’s own human rights protections to be overridden.”

Nerita Waight, the chief executive of the Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service, said the state was signing the state’s first treaty at the same time the “premier wants to sign kids’ lives away who made a mistake”.

“Shame on this government, shame on the premier and shame on this cabinet for allowing your leader to push this agenda on our kids,” she said.

“Victoria is a cruel and unforgiving state where children cannot make a mistake. Punishing trauma is not the answer.”

The Victorian announcement follows the state government backing down on plans to ban face coverings at protests.

Allan previously signalled a blanket ban on face masks and balaclavas at protests but on Tuesday said police would be able to order the removal of masks if they suspected a protester was committing or about to commit a criminal offence.