Even Labor MPs are at a loss over the Victorian premier’s ‘tough love’ plan for youth offenders

MPs across factional lines share concerns about policy that legal expert says paints the imprisonment of children as therapeutic'

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Until December last year, Meena Singh was the Victorian commissioner for Aboriginal children and young people, a role that saw her advocating for some of the state's most vulnerable children.

She had held the role since 2022. In all that time, she says, nobody from the Victorian government had approached her with a proposal like the one the Victorian premier, Ben Carroll, announced last week: a $204m tough love" plan to send children who commit low and mid-level offences to secure facilities, including the former Malmsbury youth justice centre, for schooling, drug and alcohol treatment and life skills.