Victoria’s machete ban sends an important signal, but the real enemy is disconnection, the absence of belonging, purpose, opportunity and hope. 

In recent months, Victoria has confronted a troubling and deeply consequential challenge: a rise in youth violence.

A spate of high-profile incidents — from a violent attack in a Melbourne shopping centre to assaults in suburban precincts — has shaken the public and drawn a strong political response. It is right that we feel shock, and right that we demand action.

But we must be clear about one thing: banning machetes and tightening policing powers are only part of the response. Without addressing the deeper social determinants of violence, we risk treating symptoms while the underlying disease continues to spread.

Let me begin with a principle: individuals who choose to carry or wield a weapon must be held responsible for their decisions. Poverty or exclusion does not erase moral agency. Nor does it absolve government of the duty to protect victims. But if our response stops at enforcement and bans, we will be managing violence as a law-and-order problem rather than confronting it as what it also is, a public-health and social-determinants challenge.

When a 14-year-old is attacked by six machete-wielding youths in a suburban shopping centre, we focus naturally on police presence and personal safety. But every such incident has a long upstream story: housing instability, school disengagement, fragile family supports, limited job prospects, peer cultures shaped by exclusion, the absence of trusted adult mentors, the yearning to belong. These are not excuses; they are the conditions that make violence conceivable.

Community safety, then, cannot rest solely with police and courts. It is equally the job of housing agencies, schools, employment services, youth mental-health providers, neighbourhood networks, and local cultural organisations. A blade in hand is the endpoint of an accumulation of vulnerabilities; prevention begins long before that point.

This is where the concept of justice reinvestment matters. Instead of expanding the punitive apparatus, more cells, more remand, more reactive enforcement, we redirect resources into early-intervention programs that keep young people safe and connected. It means resourcing communities to lead their own safety work. If we fail to do so, the machete ban may change the implement but not the impulse.

Accountability remains essential, but accountability without pathways out of violence is a failed strategy.

Victoria’s machete ban is justified. In a state where hundreds of weapons are seized each month and public anxiety is rising, it would be reckless not to act. But bans and stop-and-search powers alone have limited effect on whether young people carry knives. Queensland’s “ wanding” trial, for instance, increased the perception of safety but did not show clear reductions in knife carrying or assaults. Feeling safe is not the same as being safe.

An enforcement-first approach can also backfire by eroding trust, especially in communities already living at the margins. If policing becomes the dominant point of contact between young people and the state, those young people may see government as adversary rather than ally. That alienation, in turn, sustains the very cycles of violence we seek to interrupt.

A young person carrying a knife is rarely acting from innate malice. More often, it is fear — fear of being attacked, of being invisible, of being left behind. Violence, in this sense, is as much a failure of belonging as of law. Prevention must therefore be about giving young people credible alternatives to fear.

This does not mean excusing behaviour. Individuals who harm others must face real consequences. But good policy must hold two truths at once: that some will offend and must be held to account, and that many more are endangered by the conditions that push them toward offence. Their protection, not their punishment, should be our collective priority.

A sustainable approach to youth violence must operate on three interconnected levels: supply reduction, demand reduction, and community resilience.

1. Supply reduction. The ban on machetes, the safe-disposal bins, and the policing of illicit weapon markets — all these remain essential. But “supply” also means the social status attached to carrying a blade, the peer recognition it earns, and the underground economy that provides it. Disrupting that culture requires not only police intelligence but credible exit pathways for those already caught up in violent networks.
2. Demand reduction. Why do young people feel the need to carry a weapon? What fears or vulnerabilities make that decision feel necessary? To reduce demand, we must invest in school engagement, employment opportunities, trauma counselling, and restorative-justice programs that rebuild trust and self-worth.
3. Community resilience. Safety grows from connection. Schools, sporting clubs, faith groups, and neighbourhood hubs must be resourced to offer belonging and pro-social identity. We must build belonging before we build bans, and then sustain both together.

Exclusion breeds alienation; alienation breeds danger. Many young people at risk of offending already feel that society has no room for them. To reverse that, we must centre community voices, especially from migrant, refugee, Indigenous and marginalised backgrounds, in designing interventions. Programs with cultural resonance, youth agency and community trust succeed where top-down enforcement fails.

At the same time, enforcement must align with fairness. Heavy-handed stop-and-search or profiling can deepen distrust. True safety depends on young people believing that institutions exist to serve them, not to control them. Enforcement and belonging must work in tandem, neither can stand alone.

The most transformative step would be to treat youth knife violence as a preventable public-health issue. The goal is not merely to punish or deter, but to interrupt the pathways that lead a young person to feel that carrying a weapon is necessary for safety or status.

We must remember: safety is not merely the absence of crime, but the presence of belonging. When young people feel part of our shared story, when they see a future for themselves in Victoria’s narrative, the idea that the blade defines their worth will lose its power.

The weapon is not the true enemy. The enemy is disconnection, the absence of belonging, purpose, opportunity and hope. Until we address those deficits, we will keep fighting the same battles, in new locations, under new headlines.

The machete ban sends an important signal. But only when it is paired with deeper, sustained investment in social infrastructure will it deliver real safety. What young people need is not only fear of punishment, but the promise of possibility, the assurance that their belonging matters and their future is worth more than a weapon.

The views expressed in this article may or may not reflect those of Pearls and Irritations.