Updated September 7, 2026 — 12:00pm,first published 10:26am
Children recruited by organised crime networks to carry out gang-related shootings and firebombings will be prosecuted as adults under a suite of measures announced by the Minns government to address an outbreak of violence on Sydney’s streets.
The measures, introduced in response to the mistaken identity murders of university student Marco Tapia, 23, and business owner Joshua Macdonald, 40, last week, will also target offshore kingpins and local middle men who orchestrate attacks linked to the city’s escalating gangland conflicts.
The urgent bolstering of police powers marks the NSW government’s third significant crackdown on organised crime in two years and comes days after denying that police had lost control of escalating violence.
As part of the reforms announced on Monday, children committing offences linked to organised crime will face harsher penalties under an expansion to the serious children’s indictable offences scheme. Offenders charged under the scheme must be tried as adults in the District Court and Supreme Court, and face longer prison sentences than if they were prosecuted in the Children’s Court.
