Criminals who boast about their crimes on social media will serve extra time under new laws in Victoria

Criminals who boast about their crimes online could serve extra jail time under news laws introduced in Victoria. The Allan Labor government will outlaw bragging about certain crimes on social media and messaging apps, which could see offenders serve an additional two years behind bars on top of their sentence. The new law targets criminals who post content about their crimes such as affray, burglary, robbery, car theft, carjacking, home invasions and violent disorder. The laws will also apply to anyone caught encouraging or facilitating the same crimes. The legislation was introduced after authorities noticed a “dangerous trend” on TikTok and Snapchat from users seeking attention about their crimes and copycat offending. Attorney-General Sonya Kilkenny said Victorians were outraged by offenders posting and boasting about their crimes, which was why they were taking action. “This crack down alongside our tough new bail laws and machete ban is all about keeping Victorians safe,” she said. Police Minister Anthony Carbines these laws backed the work of Victoria Police and sent a clear message to offenders. “Crime isn’t content, it isn’t entertainment, and it won’t be tolerated,” he said. Similar laws already exist in NSW, Queensland and the Northern Territory, and are being rolled in Tasmania, West Australia and South Australia making Victoria the last state to act. Shadow Attorney-General Michael O’Brien said the opposition raised an issue that offenders used social media to glorify criminal behaviour 18 months ago, but the government denied action was necessary until now. He said too many Victorians who were victims of serious offending had insult added to injury by perpetrators bragging about their crimes online. Mr O’Brien said the government had been dragged kicking and screaming to act after denying there was a problem. “Labor did it with weak bail laws. Labor did it with banning machetes. Now Labor is doing it with ‘post and boast’ offending,” he said. “Victorians deserve better than ‘deny, delay and drag’. It’s no way to protect community safety.” But the Justice Reform Initiative’s Executive Director Mindy Sotiri said the Victorian government had reverted to political posturing, missing an opportunity to engage with evidence about what worked to support community safety and prevent reoffending. The organisation reported Victoria’s correctional system was under mounting strain after changes to bail laws, seeing the adult remand population and the number of children on remand rise by 22 per cent and 71 per cent respectively in the past year. Dr Sotiri said further punishing people for posting to social media failed to address the drivers of that behaviour and won’t work as a deterrent. “Introducing penalties for ‘posting and boasting’ sounds catchy and might work for political pointscoring in the short-term, but is not based in any evidence, ”she said. “All the evidence shows that the earlier children have interaction with the criminal justice system, the more likely they are to be cycling in and out of it for years to come. That’s a bad result for children, for taxpayers and for community safety. “We’ve seen this ‘tough on crime’ approach repeatedly fail in Queensland and contribute to rapidly rising prison numbers in NSW. “Rather than trying to outdo other jurisdictions with even harsher laws, Victoria needs to take a smarter approach that meaningfully invests in evidence-based responses to crime that genuinely disrupt its reoccurrence.”