Experts say Victoria’s crackdown on knife crime should reduce the number of potentially lethal weapons, like machetes, on the street, but there’s limited direct evidence on whether knife-related violence will fall as a result.
Meanwhile, human rights and youth advocates are warning expanded police search powers could worsen racial profiling and antagonise young people already feeling disconnected from the community.
On Thursday, Victoria’s premier announced the state will ban machetes, expand police search powers and introduce tougher bail tests for several knife-related offences in a bid to address growing community concern about violent knife crime.
Knife crime in Victoria has been under the spotlight after a number of tragic violent incidents, including a number involving young offenders and victims.
Law changes made in wake of stabbing tragedies
Multiple young men have lost their lives in fatal stabbing incidents in suburban Melbourne in recent months, including 24-year-old Lino Atem in January and just over a month later, 24-year-old Natan Mwanza.
Those arrested in relation to the deaths are aged in their teens and early 20s.
There’s also been multiple reports of serious crimes involving alleged young offenders and machetes.
Machetes are already “controlled weapons”, which mean they cannot be possessed or carried without a lawful excuse, but under Premier Jacinta Allan’s new proposal, they will be banned.
The government describes machetes as “long, cutting edged” knives “with a blade of more than 20 centimetres”.
Under the new laws, Victorians who legitimately require them such as farmers or hunters will be required to apply for exemptions.
Misconception that under 18s involved in most stabbings
Macquarie University criminology lecturer and former NSW police detective superintendent Vince Hurley said banning machetes was “an easy political win” for the Allan government.
“Who’s going to, in their right mind, say: well, we don’t want the knife laws changed,” he said.
Dr Hurley said it was his view that fewer knives on the street would “have to make a difference”.
Victoria is proposing an amnesty for machetes, allowing people to hand them in between September 1 and November 30 without being penalised.
Dr Hurley said that was a good approach, but if an amnesty was really to work, the state should consider paying.
“I think that if the governments were serious around Australia about the amnesty for bladed instruments or sharp object weapons, then they would pay,” he said.
He suggests paying $10 per knife or an incentive to hand them in during an amnesty, like the gun buyback, because “people would be willing and make the effort to go for a small remuneration”.
But the question of whether these changes will reduce knife-related crime and violence overall is a difficult one, given many knife-related offences are not committed on the streets, but in the home.
Victoria Police acknowledge it is a misconception that children are most commonly involved in stabbings. The latest data shows they account for 10 per cent of victims and 25 per cent of offenders.
Only one in 10 stabbings involved a “youth gang” member, Victoria Police said.
“There’s more harm to society from knives in domestic violence homicides, but that doesn’t seem to resonate with politicians,”
Dr Hurley said.
The latest data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics, from 2023, showed more than half of all Victorian homicides happened at a home, nearly two-thirds did not involve a weapon and about a third (35 per cent) were domestic and family violence related.
Frontline workers say young people carrying knives are ‘feeling unsafe’
Those on the frontline say there is an increasing presence of knives amongst young people in Victoria, causing genuine worry.
“We are concerned about it, that’s for sure,” Jesuit Social Services chief executive Julie Edwards said.
“Young people tell us that they have been carrying knives … often they’re carrying something like that because they’re feeling unsafe.”
Jesuit Social Services is a not-for-profit which runs diversionary programs for youth offenders.
While Ms Edwards said she was not opposed to the machete ban, she worried it was a “kneejerk reaction” which was not based on evidence-approaches to prevent crime.
“The reality is … we have to address the behaviour, we have to keep [young people] connected to school, connected to family,” she said.
She also warned that expanded police search powers can aggravate kids who are already feeling disconnected from their community.
“It can lead to stigmatisation, it can actually increase young people’s sense of alienation and not being valued and not being part of the community,” she said.
It was a view shared by human rights advocates, who warned expanded police search powers would unfairly target sections of the community and promote racial profiling.
Under the expanded search powers, Victoria Police can lawfully search people without a warrant in an area it has designated for a period of six months, rather than the current 12 hours.
“This is a huge overreach from the government, a government that is desperate to be seen to be doing something and is reaching and making decisions and lawmaking which is not based in evidence,” Human Rights Law Centre legal director Sarah Schwartz said.
“There needs to be guard rails to prevent police from indiscriminately searching anyone and from racially profiling people.”
Other states have already expanded police search powers
Several other states have already expanded police search powers and other laws in response to increasing community concerns about knife crime.
Last week, South Australia’s parliament passed a series of laws expanding police powers to conduct more wand (handheld metal detector) searches and new offences for carrying knives at universities, TAFE and places of worship.
In 2023, Queensland passed laws — dubbed Jack’s Law in honour of a teenager who was fatally stabbed in Surfer Paradise — which expanded police search powers and further restricting the sale of knives.
In June last year, in the wake of the Bondi Junction stabbings, the New South Wales government followed suit.
It introduced its own version of Jack’s Law, which expanded police powers and introduced new penalties for selling knives to children.
But there is limited definitive data that proves introducing knife bans, or additional searches, directly correlates to a reduction in knife-related assaults or offending.
In 2019, NSW banned and offered an amnesty for so-called ‘zombie knives,’ which were also banned in the UK last year.
NSW police could not provide data on how many were handed back and the NSW police ministers office said there had not been a review into the effectiveness of the ban.
Nearly 1,000 weapons seized under new laws interstate
Data released last month shows the Jack’s Law changes in Queensland impacted a significant number of people, with more than 100,000 people searched and 953 weapons seized since April 2023.
Associate professor in Criminal Justice and Criminology at Bond University Terry Goldsworthy said a pilot study found Queensland’s law changes to be “reasonably successful” and the changes meant a large number of weapons were now off the streets.
But he said he was yet to see comprehensive data on whether a drop in knife-violence also followed.
“What you would also want to see is a decrease in the use of knives, particularly in assaults, because the whole genesis of these laws was following a number of murders where knives were used as the weapon,” he said.
His view was overall, Victoria’s proposed changes were a step in the right direction.
“It will certainly make it a riskier issue for young people to carry these kind of weapons in public and it will give the police stronger enforcement powers,” he said.
“It would seem in Queensland the experience is positive … you’re limiting the access of young people to these kind of weapons and making it clear to them that they can’t carry them in public.”
