Justice and law experts claim a NSW Coalition plan to introduce “Adult Crime, Adult Time” laws across the state is simply not based on the available evidence as to why young people commit crimes.
“These harsh slogans don't work because they don't really recognise what works when it comes to deterrence, and it really misunderstands the way that crime is committed in the first place,” said Dr Mindy Sotiri from the Justice Reform Initiative.
What’s proposed: Liberal and National Party MPs on the Mid North Coast issued press releases on Sunday and Monday, announcing a Coalition plan to introduce youth crime reforms.
Under the reforms, maximum adult sentences would apply to a longer list of serious crimes for children and teenagers.
Sentencing guidelines and new sentencing principles would also be introduced, to “ensure detention is not treated as a last resort in serious cases”.
Funding was also promised for expanded diversion, school suspension and post-detention rehabilitation programs for young offenders.
The why: Oxley MP Michael Kemp said, under current laws, young offenders are walking away with “consequences that don’t match the seriousness of what they’ve done”.
Port Macquarie MP Robert Dwyer claimed Labor has "lost control” of crime across NSW, and that young people had been being recruited to carry out gangland hits, committing violent crimes and breaking into people’s homes.
Show us the evidence: Professor Mark Nolan, from the Centre for Law and Justice at Charles Sturt University, said claims of a rise in youth crime are not backed by data.
“If you look at the latest figures … do they really show that in the Mid North Coast area we have a spike in youth offending across most offense types? I don't think the data suggests that,” Nolan told the Mid North Coaster.
NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research data indicates overall youth crime in NSW declined over the 15 years to June 2026.
Across the Coffs Harbour-Grafton and Mid North Coast regions, NSW Police has launched action against less 10-17 year olds for criminal offences each year from 2022 to 2026.
Severity of crime: However, Coffs Harbour MP Gurmesh Singh said NSW has seen a significant increase in young people being brought before the courts for some violent offences.
“[Young offenders] are now becoming far more brazen. We are seeing attacks on people out in the streets,” he told the Mid North Coaster.
“We need to make sure that the deterrent is adequate enough to stop people committing those crimes,” he said.
Doesn’t make sense: Nolan claims longer sentences are a poor deterrent for young people, who lack the “consequential reasoning” to understand the potential outcomes of their crimes.
“To treat a child as an adult for sentencing purposes flies in the face of the fact that children are not reasoning like adults at the time they commit serious offenses,” he said.
“You're saying that because they do serious crime, they must have the intellectual capacities of an adult, or they deserve to be incarcerated like an adult.”
Reaction to fear: The Justice Reform Initiative’s Dr Mindy Sotiri argued prison itself does not work in terms of deterrence or rehabilitation.
“[In NSW] 85 percent of the kids that go to prison over the course of a year will be back within 12 months,” she said.
Developing brains: Sotiri said “tough on crime” policies such as Adult Crime, Adult Time don’t take into account the individual circumstances behind a young person offending.
“Most crime is conducted in pretty chaotic circumstances. A lot of the time, crime is impacted by drug and alcohol use. We know a lot of people in our prisons, both adults and almost all kids, have some form of disability,” she said.
“It's really important to recognise the context in which crimes are occurring, because that gives us the clues as to whether or not the threat of a harsher penalty is going to be something that makes a difference.”
Alternative options: Regardless of its prevalence, locking children up in NSW is a costly exercise.
According to the Productivity Commission, it costs $1.12 million a year to keep one child in custody.
“In NSW, we spend about $200 million a year on locking kids up,” Sotiri said.
Instead of lengthier sentences, Sotiri advocates for community-based programs to reduce offending in the first place, and more support when a young person is released back into the community on bail or from prison.
“Unfortunately, for a lot of kids leaving prison, there is absolutely nothing.
“They're in there on average for nine days, and they're going back exactly to the same situation in which they left.”
At the court level, she is supportive of models like circle sentencing and restorative justice programs.
Labor’s laws: On Tuesday, the Labor government tabled legislation to extend laws which make it harder for young people charged with repeat car theft or break and enter offences to get bail.
A voluntary diversion pilot program will be rolled out in Tamworth in early 2027, with a second location to be announced in coming weeks.
The pathway will provide wraparound support to children between the ages of eight and 13 with complex needs who are engaged in, or at risk of engaging in, concerning or high-risk behaviour.