Arson is one of the more serious property offences in Victorian criminal law, and the legislative framework that defines it has been on the move in the past two years. The arson waves — tobacco shops since 2023, hospitality venues since April 2026 — have put the offences in the news in a way they have not been since the Black Saturday-era amendments. Our newsroom has been asked, repeatedly, to set out plainly what the law actually says, what the courts actually do with it, and how a youth offender recruited into an adult criminal enterprise is treated by the system.
This is our plain-English explainer of arson, criminal damage by fire, and the related offences in the Crimes Act 1958 (Vic), the sentencing landscape, and the recruitment-of-children offence introduced in 2024.
The core arson offences
The principal arson offences sit in the Crimes Act 1958 (Vic) at sections 197, 197A and 197B, with related offences elsewhere in the Act. The shape of the offences, in plain terms:
- Section 197 — criminal damage by fire (arson). A person who intentionally or recklessly destroys or damages property belonging to another, by fire, commits arson. The maximum penalty is 15 years imprisonment.
- Section 197A — arson causing death. Where the arson causes the death of another person, the maximum penalty is 25 years imprisonment.
- Section 197 (general criminal damage). The basic criminal-damage offence, which captures damage by means other than fire, carries a maximum of 10 years.
- Section 197 (aggravated criminal damage). Where the offender intends by the damage to endanger life, or is reckless as to whether life is endangered, the maximum penalty rises to 15 years.
Several related offences will commonly appear on a charge sheet alongside arson:
- Intentionally causing serious injury (s 16, max 20 years) and recklessly causing serious injury (s 17, max 15 years), where the fire injures someone.
- Aggravated burglary (s 77, max 25 years), where the arson is preceded by entry into the premises with intent to commit an indictable offence.
- Theft of a motor vehicle (s 74, max 10 years), where a stolen vehicle is used in the offending.
- Conspiracy and incitement charges, where the prosecution case is that the offender arranged the offending rather than carrying it out.
How sentencing actually works
The maximum penalty is the ceiling Parliament has set for the most serious example of an offence. It is rarely imposed. Actual sentences are determined by the sentencing principles in the Sentencing Act 1991 (Vic) and by the body of Victorian Court of Appeal authority that interprets those principles.
For an adult offender convicted of arson under section 197 in circumstances similar to those of the tobacco-shop and hospitality firebombings — planned, with accelerants, with people present in or above the premises — sentences in the range of three to seven years imprisonment, with non-parole periods around 60 to 70 per cent of the head sentence, are the part of the range we have seen in published Victorian decisions over the past decade. Where the offender is on bail or parole at the time of the offence, where there is prior offending, or where injuries result, the sentence climbs.
For arson causing death under section 197A, the sentencing landscape is different. There is no formal minimum custodial term written into section 197A itself, but related provisions in the Sentencing Act 1991 — in particular the standard sentence regime for arson causing death — mean a serious custodial outcome is the expected result on conviction. Where a death has occurred, the courts treat the offence as towards the upper end of the range. Several Victorian decisions over the past 20 years have produced head sentences in the 14-to-20 year range with non-parole periods around 70 per cent.
How the courts treat youth offenders
This is where the arson waves have produced the most acute public-policy debate. Many of the visible offenders being arrested by Taskforce Lunar and Taskforce Eclipse are juveniles — in some cases as young as 14 or 15.
The starting point in Victorian law is that a child under 10 is irrebuttably presumed not to be capable of committing an offence. A child between 10 and 14 is presumed to be incapable but the prosecution can rebut the presumption by proving the child knew the conduct was seriously wrong (the doctrine of doli incapax). A child 14 or older is criminally responsible, but is dealt with under the Children, Youth and Families Act 2005 (Vic) in the Children’s Court rather than the adult courts.
The Children’s Court sentencing framework is distinct. Detention is a last resort. The available outcomes run through cautions, accountable undertakings, good behaviour bonds, probation, youth supervision orders, youth attendance orders and, at the top of the range, a youth justice centre order or a youth residential centre order. The maximum custodial term in the Children’s Court for a single offence is three years; for multiple offences it can extend further, but the overall principle is that custody for children is reserved for the most serious cases and should be as short as possible.
For the most serious matters — which can include arson causing death, or repeated serious offending — a child can be uplifted to the adult County Court. Uplift is comparatively rare and is reserved for matters where the Children’s Court considers its jurisdiction inadequate. Several uplift applications have been reported in mainstream press over the past two years in connection with the arson waves; their outcomes are subject to ordinary court reporting rules.
The recruitment-of-children offence
The Victorian Parliament passed the Crimes Amendment (Recruiting Children for Criminal Activity) Act 2024 in response to the recruitment patterns Victoria Police had been describing in connection with the tobacco arson campaign. The new offence sits in the Crimes Act 1958 (Vic) and, in plain terms, makes it an offence for an adult to recruit, encourage or pay a child to commit an indictable offence.
The offence carries a substantial maximum penalty — in the order of 10 years, with aggravated forms attracting more — and is structured to capture the layered chain through which children have been drawn into the arson campaigns. It is now also being tested against the hospitality arson wave that Taskforce Eclipse is investigating.
Whether the new offence will deliver the prosecutorial weight Parliament intended depends on three things. The first is the prosecution’s ability to evidence the recruitment chain — the encrypted-messaging chats, the cash payments, the layered intermediaries — in a way that survives admissibility challenges. The second is the willingness of the courts to impose serious sentences on offenders convicted under it. The third is the deterrent effect on the senior figures the offence was written to capture, which is a question for the next several years rather than the next several months.
Bail in arson matters
Arson and arson causing death are both serious offences that engage the more restrictive parts of the Bail Act 1977 (Vic). For most adult arson charges the accused must show compelling reason why their detention is not justified. For arson causing death, the test is more demanding still. We cover the bail framework in more detail in our piece on Victorian bail laws.
For child accused, the framework is different again, with Bail Act 1977 provisions interacting with the youth justice principles. Detention of a child on remand is, in principle, a last resort, but several recent matters have seen children remanded in custody pending trial.
What we are not commenting on
Consistent with our policy on active matters, we are not commenting in this piece on the guilt or innocence of any person currently before the courts in connection with either the tobacco arson campaign or the hospitality arson wave. The framework above is general legal information, not analysis of any specific case. Charged is not convicted. The presumption of innocence applies at every stage up to verdict.
If you have information about an arson attack, Crime Stoppers takes anonymous tips on 1800 333 000. In an emergency call 000. If you are a young person who has been approached online to commit an offence, you can call Kids Helpline on 1800 55 1800 to talk to someone confidentially.
Reported by Eliza Hartman, chief courts reporter.
