In the wake of a teenager's death and years of parental advocacy, Victoria has joined a growing list of Australian states granting police the power to stop and search anyone, anywhere, for knives — a decision that arrived not through evidence, but through political gravity. Premier Ben Carroll, newly in office, reversed his own government's prior position to match an opposition pledge, offering little more than the fact of his newness as explanation. The move raises an enduring question that democracies rarely answer cleanly: when grief and fear speak loudly enough, does evidence still have a
Victoria adopts Jack's Law despite expert warnings on knife-search effectiveness
Jack Beasley, 17, was fatally stabbed in Surfers Paradise in 2019, prompting the law named after him; Queensland data shows 22.6% of scanned people with known ethnicity were Indigenous despite comprising 4.6% of population.
Removing a weapon from the street is valuable, but it doesn't address why someone was carrying it.
Mark
So the premier just flipped on a policy his own government had defended months before. What changed?
Mimi
The new premier is Ben Carroll. His predecessor, under the old leadership, had met with Jack Beasley's parents and said Victoria's existing powers were enough. Carroll came in and decided to match what the Coalition had already promised.
Mark
And the evidence on whether it actually works?
Mimi
A Griffith University study of Queensland's trial found no reduction in violence. Criminologists say removing a knife from the street is good, but it doesn't address why someone was carrying it.
Luke
But that's the thing—we have a study from one state showing no effect, and now five states have adopted versions of this law. Either the evidence is being ignored, or there's something the study didn't capture.
Mimi
The evidence is being ignored. Sarah Schwartz from the Human Rights Law Centre was direct about that. And the data from Queensland shows something else: 22.6 percent of people scanned had Indigenous ethnicity, but Indigenous people are only 4.6 percent of the population.
Mark
So the concern is that it targets certain groups disproportionately.
Mimi
Yes. And in Victoria's own data, just over 1 percent of searches found anything at all.
Luke
One percent is low, but that's from designated areas only. This new law would apply anywhere, anytime. We don't know what the hit rate would be under those conditions.
Mark
The premier said they'd make sure it was legally sound. Is there a real constitutional problem?
Luke
A federal court already invalidated Victoria's CBD designation earlier this year. So yes, there's a real problem. The government says it will work with legal experts, but that's not a guarantee.
Mimi
And Jack's father, Brett Beasley, is thrilled. He's been pushing for this for years.
Mark
So you have grieving parents on one side and human rights lawyers on the other.
Mimi
That's the political bind. The Greens say Labor has lost its way, just copying the Liberals. But the premier's answer was simple: "I'm the new premier."
Le Pouls
- A government that had resisted Jack's Law for years reversed course almost overnight, with the new premier citing his own arrival in office as sufficient justification for the policy U-turn.
- Experts are sounding alarms — a Griffith University study found zero reduction in violence during Queensland's trial, and criminologists warn the law treats the symptom while leaving the wound untouched.
- Human rights advocates point to Queensland data as a warning: Indigenous Australians made up 22.6% of those scanned despite being just 4.6% of the population, revealing how broadly these powers can fall on the already vulnerable.
- Victoria's own legal ground is unstable — a federal court struck down the state's CBD search zone earlier in 2026, and the constitutional questions surrounding 'anywhere, anytime' searches remain unresolved.
- The policy is now moving forward regardless, with 1,200 metal-detecting wands set to reach police by early 2027, carried by political momentum that the evidence has so far failed to slow.
In the wake of a teenager's death and years of parental advocacy, Victoria has joined a growing list of Australian states granting police the power to stop and search anyone, anywhere, for knives — a decision that arrived not through evidence, but through political gravity. Premier Ben Carroll, newly in office, reversed his own government's prior position to match an opposition pledge, offering little more than the fact of his newness as explanation. The move raises an enduring question that democracies rarely answer cleanly: when grief and fear speak loudly enough, does evidence still have a seat at the table?
On Wednesday, Premier Ben Carroll announced that Victoria would adopt Jack's Law — giving police and protective services officers 1,200 handheld metal detectors to stop and search any person in any public place for knives, beginning early 2027. The reversal was striking. Just months earlier, under previous Labor leadership, the government had concluded that existing search powers were adequate after meeting with Jack Beasley's family. Carroll, newly in the role, offered a candid if thin explanation for the change: "I'm the new premier."
Jack Beasley was 17 when he was fatally stabbed in Surfers Paradise in 2019. His parents' years of advocacy have since shaped legislation across multiple Australian states, with Queensland leading the way and Tasmania, Western Australia, the Northern Territory, and now Victoria following. But the expansion has outpaced the evidence. A Griffith University study of a 12-month Gold Coast trial found no reduction in violence. Criminologist Joel McGregor noted that confiscating a weapon does nothing to address why someone was carrying it — the deeper conditions driving youth crime remain untouched.
Human rights advocates warned the powers would fall hardest on those already on the margins. Queensland data bore this out: of nearly 161,000 people scanned over roughly a year, Indigenous Australians accounted for 22.6% of those with a recorded ethnicity, despite making up just 4.6% of the state's population. In Victoria, Liberty Victoria's own data showed that designated-area searches turned up illicit items in barely one percent of cases.
The legal footing is also uncertain. A federal court earlier in 2026 invalidated Victoria's six-month CBD search designation, and the constitutional questions around unrestricted search powers remain open. Carroll pledged to make the law "watertight," but offered no resolution to those questions. Jack's father welcomed the announcement warmly; the Greens accused Labor of simply mirroring whatever the Liberal opposition proposed. What the moment revealed, more than anything, was the pull of a sustained, grief-driven campaign against a political class that found the evidence insufficient reason to resist it.
Premier Ben Carroll stood before reporters on Wednesday and announced that Victoria would adopt Jack's Law—a policy his government had resisted just months earlier. Under the new commitment, police and protective services officers would receive 1,200 handheld metal detectors to stop and search any person in any public place for knives, beginning in early 2027. The shift marked a striking reversal. When Anthony Carbines held the police portfolio under the previous Labor leadership, he had met with Jack Beasley's parents in September 2025 and concluded that Victoria's existing search powers were adequate. Now Carroll, the new premier, was matching a Coalition opposition pledge made the year before. Asked why the change, he offered a simple answer: "I'm the new premier."
The law takes its name from Jack Beasley, a 17-year-old stabbed to death in Surfers Paradise, Queensland, in 2019. His parents have spent years advocating for expanded police search powers, and their campaign has gained traction across state lines. Queensland introduced Jack's Law first. Tasmania, Western Australia, and the Northern Territory followed. New South Wales adopted a version limited to declared areas. Now Victoria would join them—but the decision came despite a growing body of expert skepticism about whether the measure actually works.
A Griffith University study examined a 12-month trial of Jack's Law on the Gold Coast between 2021 and 2022. The researchers found no reduction in violence as a result of the searches. Janet Ransley, who led the study, told the Guardian the previous year that there was simply no evidence the law reduced knife-related violence—the entire stated purpose of the policy. Criminologist Joel McGregor from Swinburne University made a related point: removing a weapon from the street is valuable, he acknowledged, but it does nothing to address why a person was carrying it in the first place. "Tough-on-crime policies" of this kind, he said, would do little to address the root causes of crime among young people.
Human rights advocates raised a different concern. Sarah Schwartz, legal director of the Human Rights Law Centre, accused Carroll of "ignoring the evidence and caving into pressure." The powers, she warned, would give police unchecked authority to harass and target people—particularly those already marginalized—while doing nothing to keep communities genuinely safe. The concern was not abstract. Queensland police statistics showed that between July 18, 2025, and June 30, 2026, officers stopped and scanned 160,997 people. More than 77 percent were male. Among those with a recorded ethnic origin, 22.6 percent were Indigenous, despite Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people making up only 4.6 percent of Queensland's population. In Victoria itself, two years of data obtained by Liberty Victoria revealed that just over 1 percent of searches in designated areas found any illicit items at all, including weapons.
The legal landscape added another layer of complication. Currently in Victoria, police can only conduct warrantless pat-down searches in designated areas. Earlier in 2026, a federal court had ruled invalid the government's six-month designation of the CBD as such an area. Carroll said his government would work with legal experts to ensure Jack's Law would be "watertight," but the constitutional questions remained unresolved. The premier's own words—"Victorians are sick of knife crime, and so am I"—reflected the political pressure driving the decision, even as experts cautioned that the policy would not deliver on its promise.
Brett Beasley, Jack's father, welcomed the announcement. "It's about bloody time," he told ABC Radio Melbourne, urging people to set politics aside and focus on community safety. The Greens' justice spokesperson Katherine Copsey saw it differently, accusing Labor of losing its way on the issue and simply copying whatever the Liberal opposition announced. The reversal illustrated a broader political dynamic: a bipartisan rush toward expanded police powers, driven by a tragic death and sustained advocacy, even as the evidence suggested the powers would prove ineffective and potentially harmful to the very communities they were meant to protect.
Citations marquantes
There's no evidence that it's in any way effective in actually reducing knife-related violence, which is the whole premise of the law.— Janet Ransley, Griffith University
These powers only serve to give police unchecked powers to harass and target people, particularly marginalised groups, while doing nothing to actually keep communities safe.— Sarah Schwartz, Human Rights Law Centre
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