Jordan Dittloff
Jordan Dittloff is a law graduate, ex-offender, and libertarian advocate for capitalism and civil liberties.
As Victoria approaches the next state election in November 2026, law and order will once again be front and centre. Historically, the policy debate has been a rapid race to the bottom, with incumbent and opposition both engaging in a kind of “tough on crime” policy auction, with each side promising to be more muscular, more punitive, and provide more resources and powers to police.
And 2026 promises to be no different, with the stakes rapidly escalating as mainstream and new media both report daily examples of brazen offending, youth and adult, increasingly using weapons, invading homes while occupants are present, in broad daylight or public places. This time, though, feels different: Victorians increasingly believe the government and police are powerless to protect them and the community in any meaningful way.
Could libertarian ideas make a unique contribution to this policy space, and provide real solutions that are principled and effective, striking the right balance between community protection and ensuring the vicious cycle doesn’t continue to perpetuate?
I will argue that the answer is yes.
I write this article as someone who has lived experience of the criminal justice system, being granted (and breaking) bail, going on remand, and having a sentence imposed on me. I served a 27-month term of imprisonment and a further 16 months on parole, for drug-related and white-collar crimes. In the case of my failed travel agency business, my offending was also a violation of the non-aggression principle that libertarians take as a fundamental tenet.
In responding to the consequences of my actions, and the effort to reconcile my values with my past mistakes, I have had more cause than most to consider the interplay between libertarian ideas and justice.
So what practical policies could they offer?
The libertarian position must surely be to empower individuals and groups within society to act as a bridge.
For Victoria Police, their emphasis on promoting the services of non-sworn functions such as “when you need us but not the sirens” and a focus on cybercrime, domestic violence, and other specialised areas instead of traditional community policing, leaves a large gap. Victims of home invasions frequently report the police arriving after the fact, doing nothing more than offer ways in which they could have better protected themselves or should do so in future (which feels like victim blaming), or assisting with insurance reporting.
Empowering citizens with both the means (such as firearms and pepper spray) and the legal certainty to resist criminals and defend their families and property is crucial, and overwhelmingly popular. Recent polling on the issue of Castle Doctrine (the right to use disproportionate force in defence of the home) and media reporting of the proposal by Libertarian Party MLC David Limbrick shows this idea is extremely popular. His motion to refer self-defence laws to the VLRC for a review failed only by a single vote in the upper house.
A significant part of the decline in public confidence in the government, police, and courts is that the rule of law is widely believed to have been replaced by two-tier enforcement, policing, and sentencing. That is, aggressive Antifa protests flagging violence with phrases such as “smash the fash” and “no peace police” (a dog whistle to not intervene when Antifa elements choose violence) are treated in a significantly different way to Covid protests or protests about right-wing issues. A libertarian policy response should ensure a return to the axiom that justice must be blind to race, creed, or preference, and robustly independent of the executive.
Many people assume that libertarians would inherently favour voter alternatives to incarceration. While a part of the libertarian policy response would absolutely include a reduction in the scope of human activity considered to be crimes (such as legalising weed, which wastes an immense amount of police, court and prison resources), responsibility and repercussions for harm and aggression should be an important part of the policy mix. Consequences for offending should be swift, with justice delayed being justice denied for victims as well as the accused.
Where possible, sentencing should be tailored to match the crime, and include victim centred, restorative justice.
In the classic Clint Eastwood movie Gran Torino, a young would-be car thief fails his task, and his family compels him to perform work and service for the elderly car owner. Where property is damaged or stolen, reparations should be paid and enforced through garnishing of welfare or wages (a mechanism already readily available in the civil litigation space). A moving event in real life in Australia in recent weeks saw the father of young children killed in a car crash by a reckless driver go into prison to meet and speak with the killer of his kids. It was profound and likely life changing for both men.
Sometimes, deprivation of liberty is the best punishment, alone or in tandem with restorative justice. Where a custodial sentence is imposed, it is no mercy or compassion to impose short sentences without conditions on release. Time and again during my 27-month sentence, I saw people get fit and healthy, make criminal connections, then leave only to return a few months later. If prison is appropriate, it should be for a long enough time to allow offenders to break their old habits and become mentally, as well as physically, restored.
Victorians increasingly believe the government and police are powerless to protect them and the community in any meaningful way.
Upon release from prison, when it comes to both the fate of the offenders returning into society and how society feels about them, the power of the state is at its lowest ebb. Individual responsibility and agency play a crucial role in rehabilitation, as do community attitudes towards people with a criminal record. Here, the libertarian position must surely be to empower individuals and groups within society to act as a bridge and help to assist those getting out to become, in the beautiful words of then Chief Justice King, “honourable, law-abiding citizens”, whether they were before prison or not.
There is already a significant shift within Corrections and the Department of Justice, of which I am fortunate enough to be playing a part, towards empowering ex-offenders with stories of success to act as mentors and lived-experience voices to help others build a life post-release and avoid returning to prison. I hope to bring the business community and other groups within society into this (fundamentally private and libertarian) solution, solving problems such as staff shortages and retention along the way.
Ultimately, variations on the familiar socialist intersectional theme of characterising offenders as victims, before swinging back to a hyped up, tough on crime approach, are both equally unsupported by the evidence and doomed to fail. If we are to achieve what surely must be the overriding purpose of the justice system as a whole and create a better, safer society, we must do everything possible to ensure that there is a pathway forwards, together.
This article was originally published by Liberty Itch.
