In this interview, John Roskam appeared on 3AW Mornings with Tom Elliott to discuss the IPA’s research on Criminal Justice.
All media appearances posted onto the IPA website are directly related to the promotion and dissemination of IPA research.
Below is a transcript of the interview.
Tom Elliott:
Look, our crime crisis is the issue I think that faces this state or perhaps energy prices and the crime crisis. And we all heard about, or you might’ve seen the footage of that appalling stabbing, which is actually from two and a half weeks ago. Literally a mad woman, crazy, I don’t know what to describe her, just goes up to when we now later found out as a Taiwanese sushi chef, she’s been living here for seven years, stabs her in the chest. Now the stabber is now in custody and she will remain in remand until her court date. But she was out on bail at the time of the stabbing. And it’s kicked off the argument yet again, is Melbourne really a safe place? We are the crime capital of Australia. Why? And what should we do about it? Our next guest is senior fellow at the Institute of Public Affairs, he wrote about this very issue this morning in the Financial Review. John Roskam, good morning.
John Roskam:
Good morning, Tom.
Tom Elliott:
Well, I take the view that in different parts of Australia we’re essentially the same sorts of people. Why is crime so much worse in Victoria compared to the other states?
John Roskam:
Well, Tom, you are absolutely correct to identify that Victoria is different from the other states and it’s clear that this is a Victorian problem. And the point that I make is that what we’ve suffered through in Victoria and in Melbourne is a deliberate policy decision consequence. So we know that if we compare crime rates in Victoria, as you said, to New South Wales for example, they are much worse. The reason Victoria is worse is because of deliberate decisions. So as I enunciated in the piece, our bail laws are different from those in other states. We have a tendency in the judiciary especially has a preference to keep people out of jail. And so what that does is it means that we have a lower incarceration rate than other states and also our prisons are relatively empty. And that then has consequence for offending that we see in the streets of Melbourne today.
Tom Elliott:
Now I remember when Daniel Andrews was still the premier year, he pushed a more successful in weakening the bail laws. What exactly did he do and what was the thinking behind it at the time?
John Roskam:
Well, that’s a very important question, Tom. So you’re exactly right. It was actually just a few months before he finished his premier. And in response to a number of Indigenous deaths in custody, there is a coronial inquiry. And the government then announced a number of measures. So they changed the law so that if you broke bail, breaking bail was no longer an offence. They also changed the law so that if you committed a crime while on bail, that wasn’t offence either. And that was a deliberate decision and, for example, that is different from the law in New South Wales. And so the idea was, and they understood this to keep people out of prison, to give them a second chance, to have them integrated into the community. But it clearly didn’t work. They were warned about the consequence that this would mean that dangerous offenders, and what we’re talking about is violent offenders, would be out on the streets, they would be continually bailed. And that is what happened. It was a deliberate policy choice of the government in 2023.
Tom Elliott:
Okay. But if breaching bail is not an offence, I mean what is the point of bail? I mean, bail has conditions. You will not leave home before, you won’t be out of your house after eight o’clock at night. You won’t go back out again before six in the morning. You will not associate with these people, dot, dot, dot. If it is not an offence to breach your bail terms. What is the point of having bail in the first place?
John Roskam:
Well, that’s exactly right, Tom. And the other point that’s happened in Victoria is that bail conditions had continually changed. So there was of course the notorious incident of a 15-year-old charged with very violent offences who was allowed to travel to Europe with his parents. So the challenge is that if you break bail and there’s no punishment, then you understand you can do this continually and you will be let out to be on the streets and your court date might be six months away, it might be 12 months away. And the feeling is there is no punishment, there are no consequences for your actions. And unfortunately that’s how a small minority, a very small minority of young Victorians think like that today.
Tom Elliott:
Right. So in an effort to try and stop young or any Indigenous people being incarcerated, we’ve weakened the bail laws and unfortunately the law of unintended consequences has now prevailed. And we’ve got lots of young offenders, not just Indigenous ones, but lots committing offence after offence after offence. Now Jacinta Allan argues that last year she reimposed, or actually it was this year, tough bail laws. Has that actually been done?
John Roskam:
Well, the law has been changed, but the question is how has the law interpreted by the court system? And as we saw last month, the court system basically hasn’t changed the way they applied by law. So we saw guidelines that the judicial officers apply and it is still the application of the old law, which is that bail is the first provision that the focus is on keeping people in the community and keeping young people out of prison. So as yet, there’s been no change. And the Premier talked about this, but unless it’s reflected in what the courts do, there won’t be any impact.
Tom Elliott:
You probably heard that the woman who’s been charged with a terrible random stabbing in the CBD two weeks ago, she was out on bail at the time of the stabbing. She is now thankfully in custody. Do you think an event like this might be enough to really shift our thinking on the issue?
John Roskam:
Well, I hope so, Tom. And you identified that the challenge is what do we do? And people like Professor Mirko Bagaric have identified that we actually do know what to do. There’s decades of research that identifies that propensity to commit crimes is reduced when there is a high chance of detection. So if you think you’re going to get caught, you are less likely to commit a crime.
And secondly, we also know that severe serious punishment at the first instance is more likely actually to deter people from committing crimes. So what we’re focused on are violent criminals who have to be unfortunately kept off the streets to keep our community safe. And what is happening is that is not occurring. And a focus on keeping people in the community has been counterproductive for the community and counterproductive for the offenders themselves because they are committing crime after crime and being released on bail four, five times after they had previously breached bail.
Tom Elliott:
Okay, final question. And this is something I’ve raised before. I’m ashamed to admit. Seven years ago I lost my licence. I was in the country area, unbalanced to me the speed limit in the area had been reduced from 100 down to 80K’s an hour. I thought it was still a hundred. I overtook someone at 111 and I was pinged by a local police officer because I was 30K’s over the limit, that was instant loss of licence. I had six months of not driving, it was pretty hard on our family. But since then, I think I’ve accrued one point on my licence. It has changed. I just don’t speed anymore because I face the consequences and the inconvenience and the cost involved having to get taxis everywhere and that sort of thing.
I don’t understand why because I speed there was a strict and a punishment that I could not get out of and I was taught a lesson. And I don’t understand why for that sort of thing, like speeding or drink driving we have strict punishments. But really for more serious offences it seems we do not.
John Roskam:
Tom, that is exactly the comparison that other peoples have made. And one of the differences is because we are trying to do the right thing by young people who’ve often had very difficult circumstances and very difficult lives. And as I talk about in my piece, these young people were locked up for months and months during COVID. But what we have tried to do has been absolutely the wrong decision by demonstrating that we respect them and respect the community by imposing sentences, by taking what they’ve done seriously and trying to rehabilitate them, but not releasing them on the merry-go-round of bail, that is going to be a better way forward than what we are doing at the moment.
Tom Elliott:
All right, thank you for your time. John Roskam, the senior fellow at the Institute of Public Affairs. And look, if you can get hold of a copy of the Australian Financial Review or look at it online, John’s piece on this is very much worth reading. I think he has enunciated more clearly where we have gone wrong and what we should do about it.
This transcript with John Roskam talking on 3AW Mornings with Tom Elliott 17 October 2025 has been edited for clarity.
