Young repeat offenders are being blamed for an increase in youth crime in Victoria.
In the past 12 months, overall offending in Victoria is down 12 per cent but offences by young people have risen by 16 per cent.
Rodolfo Arena, his wife and three children have experienced the trauma of what's known as an aggravated burglary.
Two young offenders broke into their house while they were all at home and stole the family car.
Mr Arena told Channel Nine more youth justice programs are needed to try to discourage people from offending.
"I understand that they are kids. We can all understand that but at the same time, something needs to be done to protect the families, right. It's a lot more than just you know locking kids up, maybe they need to run programs to educate these kids. Give them something else to do because it seems like they are just getting involved in crime because they are bored."
Under the Victorian government trial, Attorney-General Jaclyn Symes says about 50 young people would be fitted with the monitoring bracelets.
"We know that people on bail, if they stick to their conditions, if they engage in the programs, if they stay home at night when they're supposed to, they're not going to go on to commit further crimes. They're not going to put themselves in a risky situation where they do something stupid that has a consequence for their life and others. An ankle bracelet is not an alternative to remand, it is not an alternative to other programs but in a small number of cases, if an ankle bracelet will encourage a young person to comply with their bail conditions and, indeed, it's more easy to detect when they're not, and you can respond appropriately, we think this will have an outcome for that young person and have a benefit for community safety."
Youth crime in Victoria has made headlines because some of those accused of offences have been on bail.
Jaclyn Symes says it can be difficult for bail decision makers to know if a young person is likely to re-offend.
"This is a graduated response to offending behaviour. If you're a bail decision maker and a child is an unacceptable risk, they should be remanded. However, it is incredibly difficult for a bail decision maker to know what a young person is going to do, if they're going to re-offend. We know kids make reckless choices. They don't necessarily think about the consequences. If we can have a bracelet that is a reminder of your obligations while you're on bail, it can help that child not put themselves in a situation where they are breaking into a home or worse."
Secretary of the Victorian Police Association Wayne Gatt welcomes the trial.
"It's a practical, pragmatic response to a very serious issue that we're seeing in the community that our members are sadly having to deal with and grapple with that is becoming increasingly difficult to solve and it's a timely one because the community is calling for it and we say that that is the most important stakeholder group that needs to be listened to on this issue. The community express, as they had indeed, during this period of time such significant concerns about their perceptions about their own safety and indeed their actual safety. It's right and it's appropriate that the government responds with measures like this."
The state opposition has criticised the trial.
Spokesman on Legal Affairs Michael O'Brien says young people will wear the bracelets as a badge of honour.
"I don't think that someone who is game enough to break into your house at night armed with a machete is going to be worried about one of Jacinta Allan's ankle bracelets. I don't think they'll be scaring young offenders I think they'll be wearing them as a badge of honour."
Associate Professor of Criminology at the University of Melbourne, Diana Johns says ankle bracelets are a proven failure.
She conducted research in England and Wales and says young people in those jurisdictions would go outside wearing shorts so they could boast about having been fitted with a monitoring device.
"It does nothing to interrupt their criminalised identity. They are showing the world 'look at me, I've been criminalised, I'm wearing this bracelet, you better look out I'm scary, I'm what ever' and, indeed, I've spoken with young people who've had these experiences, who've been tagged, as they call it, with a view to punishing them to controlling them, to surveil them, to scrutinising their behaviours to make sure that they maintain a curfew but it does nothing to achieve these aims."
Lawyer Negar Panahi from the Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service opposes the trial.
"Electronic monitoring has been proven not to work. We don't subject adults in the system to this level of scrutiny and supervision and it is certainly not a place to start with our children."
Criminologist Diana Johns says attaching ankle bracelets to young offenders can actually make matters worse.
“They actually increase the likelihood that young people will go on to commit further violence or re-offend because they are not addressing the underlying causes of young people’s use of violence in the first place and because they're increasing the shame and humiliation which are part of the reason why people use violence."
Associate Professor Johns says trying to arrange for appropriate support for young offenders is more effective than relying on punitive measures.
"If we want to keep young people secure, keep ourselves, the community safe, we want to know where young people are, we want them to abide by curfew or by other bail conditions, then we need to understand who is in their community that can ensure those conditions are met, how we strengthen the relationships around them with other stable adults, for example, and not simply apply this very quick and easy technological quick fix or solution that is shown to be ineffective and worse than ineffective actually create the conditions for more re-offending."
