Victoria’s ‘vital new measure.’ School Community Safety Orders: procedural fairness, accountability, and the potential for heightened risk

ABSTRACT

This contemporary comment examines School Community Safety Orders (SCSOs). Introduced in 2022, these provisions permit principals in the Australian state of Victoria to ban adults from school premises and events in response to concerns about the risk of violent, threatening or abusive behaviour, and/or other perceived disruptive acts. SCSOs have only been active for a short time, and there is currently limited information regarding their use. Following an examination of the legislation, this paper discusses a number of operational and procedural concerns. These include the subjective framing of behaviours that may lead to an SCSO, the ways in which SCSOs are imposed and the absence of provision/s to prevent their misuse or abuse. The paper draws attention to the lack of clear protocols and safeguards to ensure the appropriate and proportionate use of SCSOs, advocates for consistent and transparent monitoring—to understand how many are issued, to whom and for what reasons—and asks whether the provisions adequately address concerns regarding safety in schools. More broadly, the provisions are also situated and discussed within the wider context of risk-based criminalisation—including the increasing use of pre-emption and privatisation/civilianisation—and the issues to which these developments can give rise.

KEYWORDS:

• Banning
• exclusion
• oversight
• school principal
• school safety
• violence

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

Given the nature of the paper, there is no dataset associated with this work.

Notes

1 The imposition provisions differ slightly between government and non-government schools.

2 An FOI request was submitted to the Victorian Department of Education [DET] in February 2023, seeking a breakdown of SCSOs imposed since mid-2022. A response is pending.

3 ‘Secretary to the Department’ [of Education], as defined within the primary legislation (Education and Training Reform Act 2006 (Vic)).

4 Penalty units determine the fine imposed for an infringement offence. From 1 July 2022 to 30 June 2023, the value of a penalty unit is $184.92 (Department of Justice & Community Safety, 2023).

5 Licensee bans/barring orders are imposed in response to problematic behaviours in/around licensed premises to exclude recipients from a venue for a specified period. Police-imposed banning notices prohibit recipients from entering defined public areas and/or other specified locations for a fixed period of time. Both can be imposed on the spot, and are typically based upon a discretionary decision (Farmer & Clifford, 2023).

6 For example, the oath/affirmation sworn by Victoria Police Officers, Police Support Officers and Special Constables is set out in the Victoria Police Act 2013.

7 Personal correspondence to the author from the Executive Director, Department of Education’s Employee Safety, Wellbeing and Inclusion Division (email, 20 March 2023).

8 Word versions of the forms to be completed for immediate and ongoing SCSOs are accessible under the section headed ‘Issuing a school community safety order’ (DET, 2023).

9 There were 2277 registered schools in Victoria as at 30 June 2020, of which 69% were government schools, 21% Catholic and 10% independent (VRQA, 2022).

10 Personal correspondence to the author from the Executive Director, Department of Education’s Employee Safety, Wellbeing and Inclusion Division (email, 20 March 2023).

11 The limitations of space preclude a detailed discussion of the drivers of criminalisation, problem representations of violence and evolution of penal populism.