Coalition of community organisations from Melbourne’s West calls for crime prevention built to last
Members of the TARGET ZER0 coalition, based in Melbourne’s West, welcome a report by the Victorian Auditor-General’s Office (VAGO) on the Youth Crime Prevention Program (YCPP), and call for long-term, evidence-based investment in prevention and early intervention through a whole-of-government approach across all three levels of government.
Specifically, TARGET ZER0 is calling for:
- multi-year funding for prevention and early intervention including for impact measurement;
- shared outcomes and measures agreed up front, with data and public reporting built in
- the lessons from VAGO’s report applied to new initiatives, including the Violence Reduction
Unit; - a whole-of-government approach across local, state and federal government to prevention
- priority for First Nations young people; multicultural young people; and young people living in
residential care who are also enabled to shape the approach.
VAGO’s report, Preventing Youth Crime, tabled on 23 September, found:
- that despite DJCS claiming YCPP was proven, there was no objective evidence that it reduced
offending as success had not been measured against a clear target or benchmark; - 50 percent of YCPP participants had been recorded by police to have allegedly offended
again (between 2022–2025) however the program only reached 2 percent of youth offenders
overall; - two-thirds of providers surveyed said demand for YCPP exceeded capacity.
TARGET ZER0 brings partners across the Local Government Areas of Brimbank, Melton and Wyndham around a shared agenda to prevent local young people being pushed and pulled back into the criminal justice system.
Launched in 2021, TARGET ZER0 partners recognised that we are working on problems that no single organisation can fully see or solve alone. Each organisation holds only a part of the picture. Shared data collection and measurement helps put those pieces together.
Longer-term investment from the Paul Ramsay Foundation has made shared data collection and impact measurement possible, giving partners time to reveal patterns and gaps that are difficult to see from one organisation’s data alone, strengthen our understanding of root causes, challenge assumptions and help the coalition decide where collective attention is most needed.
The Productivity Commission has also called for a National Prevention and Early Intervention Framework in its Delivering quality care more efficiently¹. Inquiry Report which embeds better evaluation into funding processes across federal, state and territory governments and enables collaboration given that the costs and benefits of effective prevention and early intervention straddle multiple layers.
The measurement challenges identified by VAGO are not unique to the YCPP. Its previous reports have found similar gaps in out-of-home care, maternal and child health, Free TAFE, The Orange Door and Victoria Police. In June, VAGO found departments do not consistently measure whether initiatives in the $3.46 billion Early Intervention Investment Framework reduce demand for acute services.
Victoria budgeted $1.6 billion over four years for youth custody; the YCPP’s 2026–27 funding is $5.1 million. Custody is also a short-term fix. It costs $7,304 per young person a day, or about $2.7 million a year, and more than half of young people released return to sentenced custody within a year.²
By comparison, a year at a Victorian government school costs about $71 dollars per day or $20,000³. International research has found that each extra year of schooling across a population cuts arrest rates by about 11 per cent, and Australian research shows each extra year of schooling lifts annual earnings by about 13 per cent.
Effective prevention starts with resourcing that keeps students in school and connected to learning and peers; enables young people to feel strong and confident in their identity and culture and supported in their local community; families healthy and in safe, secure housing; and parents and caregivers in meaningful work and able to pay the bills.
More about the report
The YCPP is Victoria’s largest and longest-running youth crime prevention initiative. It funds 12 community organisations to support young people in 14 communities, several of whom are members of the coalition.
VAGO’s report focused specifically on the YCPP; other crime prevention initiatives were outside its scope. Its analysis of offending drew on Victoria Police records of alleged offending, which include anyone accused of a crime, whether or not they were charged or convicted.
The YCPP is currently funded for one year. The Department of Justice and Community Safety (DJCS) sought $52.8 million over four years to expand it statewide, yet the Budget has only allowed $5.1 million for 2026–27.
The TARGET ZER0 coalition is concerned that this type of short-term funding makes it difficult to build trust with young people and gather evidence of what works.
The YCPP operates in Brimbank, Melton and Wyndham, TARGET ZER0’s specific areas of focus. More than 230,000 children and young people live in these three Local Government Areas.
DJCS has accepted VAGO’s recommendations and has started acting on them, including asking providers to report more on who they reach and the services they deliver, and restarting a forum where providers share what works.
VAGO’s Recommendations
VAGO made two recommendations to DJCS, both accepted in full:
- make sure the YCPP reaches the young people it is intended for and reduces offending, through minimum participant data and record-keeping requirements, specific and measurable service targets, and the data needed to evaluate the YCPP’s overall effectiveness
- identify lessons from the YCPP and apply them to it and to similar youth crime prevention initiatives, including by re-establishing a forum where providers share what works and by working with other agencies.
Previous findings on data and outcome measurement
- Investing in Early Intervention Initiatives (VAGO, June 2026): $3.46 billion has gone to 105 initiatives through the Early Intervention Investment Framework since 2021–22. Only 25.8 per cent of the initiatives required to report had a baseline, a target and results. Departments do not consistently measure whether demand for acute services has fallen.
- Out-of-Home Care Services (VAGO, June 2026): longstanding data quality issues, flagged in audits since 2009, limit the department’s understanding of children’s needs.
- Enhanced Maternal and Child Health Program Performance (VAGO, April 2026): the department reports on one of the five performance measures in the program’s guidelines.
- Free TAFE (VAGO, May 2026): there is no framework or plan to evaluate the $718.3 million initiative, which has not been evaluated as a whole since 2020.
- The Orange Door: Follow-up (VAGO, May 2025): data systems have improved, but the department reports against 18 of the 24 measures in its performance framework.
- The Effectiveness of Victoria Police’s Staff Allocation (VAGO, September 2022): Victoria Police “cannot assure itself or the community” that 2,729 additional officers, funded through the $2 billion Community Safety Statement, delivered community safety outcomes.
- In its 2023 Working Together action plan, the Smart Justice for Young People coalition, coconvened by Youthlaw and Westjustice, asked government to set baselines and publicly report outcomes.
Productivity Commission: prevention and early intervention
The Productivity Commission’s inquiry report Delivering quality care more efficiently (No. 112, 10 December 2025) recommended that the Australian Government work with state and territory governments to establish a National Prevention and Early Intervention Framework (recommendation 3.1), embed better evaluation of prevention and early intervention into government funding processes (3.2), and fund programs jointly where costs and benefits fall across levels of government (3.3). It estimated that investing $1.5 billion over five years would save governments $2.7 billion over ten years.
Sources for figures
- YCPP funding, youth custody budget and daily custody cost: VAGO, Preventing Youth Crime (September 2026), citing the Productivity Commission’s Report on Government Services. The annual custody cost is $7,304 × 365.
- School cost: Productivity Commission, Report on Government Services 2026, government recurrent expenditure per student in Victorian government schools, 2023–24.
- Arrest rates: Lochner and Moretti, ‘The Effect of Education on Crime’, American Economic Review, 2004 (US data).
- Earnings: Leigh, ‘Returns to Education in Australia 2001–2022’, Economic Papers, 2025 (HILDA data, 2018–2022).
About TARGET ZER0
TARGET ZER0 is a ten-year collaborative systems change initiative in Brimbank, Melton and Wyndham. Through collective impact, it is working to end the criminalisation of young people aged 10–25, and the over-representation of First Nations young people, multicultural young people and
young people in residential care in the justice system. It is coordinated by the Centre for Multicultural Youth and Westjustice, with support from the Paul Ramsay Foundation.
Statement endorsed by:
Aspiring Young Africans Foundation
Centre for Multicultural Youth
headspace National Youth Mental Health Foundation
Jesuit Social Services
Ngā Mātai Pūrua Inc. (NMP)
The Huddle
The Youth Junction Inc
Westjustice
Wyndham Community Education Centre
Youth Support + Advocacy Service
¹See Recommendation 3.1, Delivering care more efficiently,- Inquiry Report, No. 112, 10 December 2025
²See Table 17A.20, Cost per young person subject to detention-based supervision, 2024-2025 (a) at Column N, Line 7 and Table 17A.26, Proportion of young people released from sentenced supervision, aged 10–16 years at time of release, who returned to sentenced supervision within 12 months, by state or territory of index sentence (a)
³https://acara.edu.au/reporting/national-report-on-schooling-in-australia/school-expenditure