Professor Marilyn McMahon

So there's been a lot of reporting on youth crime in Victoria, in particular, repeat youth offenders driving a rise in crime.

So what do these stats actually tell us at the moment?

Well, there's obviously been modelling done by the Victorian government, but they haven't released it.

So we don't really know what's driving them.

We do know that the police have told us that they are concerned about a small group of recidivist youth offenders, and that is driving their concern for harsher bail laws.

What we've seen is an increase in youth crime, not only in Victoria, but elsewhere.

And I think that's been a potent driver of the bail reforms, in particular, the abandonment of that principle that you only use imprisonment or remand as a last resort when you're dealing with young offenders in bail.

So there's a question here about the balance between ensuring community safety, which is a laudable goal, and protecting individual rights.

So where do you think the balance sits?

Well, I think we've lost any sense of balance in the current debate.

If we take a step back and get away from the headlines and the very emotionally driven media portrayals that we've seen in recent weeks, we have to remember as a community, we have an interest in protecting people's rights.

Much of the discussion in recent weeks has presumed that people on bail are guilty of their offences.

I think that's deeply troubling.

So I think we need to take a step back and realise that once again, we are balancing different interests here.

There's not only those members of the community who've been traumatised by violent crime, and they certainly need our attention.

I think the second thing we need to remember is that much offending is related to mental health issues, drug and alcohol problems, family violence and social disadvantage.

Tackling those issues will really contribute to community safety as well because they underlie a lot of the offending that we're seeing.

But locking up people in prison is a short-term solution.

We know that people who've gone to prison aren't deterred.

And there's research from the United States that suggests if you put a person in jail, even for a short period of time, we're talking maybe three or four days,