Victorian crime figures: How Victoria could follow Scotland’s lead and cut knife crime and youth offending

Victoria could reverse its escalating trend of violent youth crime within a few years if it adopted the Scottish approach of introducing “a thousand small sanities”, say two of that country’s youth justice leaders.

Crime statistics released last week show children aged between 10 and 17 are committing almost two-thirds of Victoria’s robberies and half of all aggravated burglaries, and that Victoria Police’s taskforce on youth gangs has arrested 494 gang members a combined 1657 times in the past year.

But Scotland’s transition from the homicide capital of Western Europe to having no under-18s in jail provides a potential model for reform, says Karyn McCluskey, the founder of the country’s violence reduction unit.

In the early 2000s in Scotland, knife crime was prevalent and best illustra