{"id":212234,"date":"2025-09-09T07:24:11","date_gmt":"2025-09-09T07:24:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/212234\/"},"modified":"2025-09-09T07:24:11","modified_gmt":"2025-09-09T07:24:11","slug":"jacinta-allan-flags-new-police-powers-to-tackle-gang-violence-after-boys-murder","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/212234\/","title":{"rendered":"Jacinta Allan flags new police powers to tackle gang violence after boys\u2019 murder"},"content":{"rendered":"

Opposition Leader Brad Battin was suspended from parliament for the rest of the day after accusing the Speaker of wanting to \u201csilence the opposition\u201d. Almost all the opposition MPs then walked out in protest.<\/p>\n

Victoria\u2019s police chief backed a call for tougher youth crime punishments<\/a> after one of his senior detectives, Detective Inspector Graham Banks, on Sunday said penalties for serious crimes were not in line with community expectations.<\/p>\n

Elbino Akueng, the father of Dau, also said he was dismayed by the lack of police action after recent incidents of teens wielding machetes in his area, Melbourne\u2019s outer-west.<\/p>\n

While Allan has not flagged any imminent changes to sentencing laws, she said it was her \u201cabsolute expectation\u201d that the courts and the entire legal system put community safety first.<\/p>\n

On Monday, the premier announced a South Sudanese youth justice working group \u2013 which will include ministers and police \u2013 saying solutions to the fight against violent crime had to come from within the community.<\/p>\n

Battin said the government needed to ensure sentencing was in line with community expectations but did not provide specific details on any potential opposition policies.<\/p>\n

Loading<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will look at all proposals when it comes to sentencing in Victoria to ensure that the community can be kept safe,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Battin said the opposition was examining all possible policies to help reduce crime \u2013 including crime prevention to keep kids out of jail<\/a> \u2013 and punitive measures, such as tougher sentencing.<\/p>\n

Allan defended taking two days to publicly respond to the deaths, saying her focus was supporting the grieving families and not on \u201cpolitical point-scoring\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cI will not act in a reckless, politically point-scoring way like the leader of the opposition does time and time and time again,\u201d Allan said in today\u2019s press conference.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat is not leadership, that is not looking at addressing the challenges that have been faced by many in our community, that is just reckless \u2026 political behaviour that is all about political point-scoring, not about supporting communities and not about understanding what is driving this dangerous behaviour that we all need to address together.\u201d<\/p>\n

Loading<\/p>\n

The calls for tougher penalties come despite the government having recently introduced a suite of law-and-order reforms. Last month, parliament passed stricter bail conditions for serious repeat offenders and new \u201cpost and boast\u201d laws targeting criminals who film their offences.<\/p>\n

A statewide ban on machetes also came into effect at the start of September, carrying penalties of up to two years\u2019 prison or a $47,000 fine. An amnesty for people to surrender the weapons is in place until November 30.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Opposition Leader Brad Battin was suspended from parliament for the rest of the day after accusing the Speaker…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":210958,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4740,50],"class_list":{"0":"post-212234","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-australia","9":"tag-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115173147571247831","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212234","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=212234"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212234\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/210958"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=212234"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=212234"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=212234"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}