The cost of a crime crackdown in Victoria is starting to emerge as financially tight state governments face a $727 million plan, with the increase in remands as the number of remands increases with the $727 million plan to be entrusted.

Prime Minister Jacinta Allan visited the state’s new Western Plains Correctional Center on Tuesday, announcing that next week’s state budget will include funding nearly 1,000 adult prison beds and 88 youth justice beds, as well as hundreds of new correctional staff.

Allan told reporters that capacity needs to be increased after the state bail law changes that came into effect in March.

"We have a tough new bail law, and they are working on it. We're seeing an increase in the number of criminals remanded," she said.

“We are supporting it with more beds and more correction staff.”

Government data in April showed that adults were remanded at 22% compared to the same period last year, and young people increased by 71%.

Nerita Waight, CEO of Victoria’s Aboriginal Legal Services (Vals), said “celebrating” the growing remand number “celebrating” is “flawed, disturbing and misleading.”

“This does not equal the safety of the community and will only cause further distress, trauma and injury cycles,” she said.

Waight said that since June last year, the increase in young people in Vals' dedicated youth legal practice Balit Ngulu has been 300%. For Vals' adult customers, a 216% increase.

“In an already tense fiscal environment, today’s announcement shows that Prime Minister Premier Allan has invested in expanding prisons rather than programmatic solutions, rather than providing a safer Victoria for all of us, not just some of us,” she said.

Julie Edwards, CEO of Jesuit Social Services, said the money was spent on “the wrong side of the system” and “does not do anything” to prevent crime.

"We are really worried that the Victorian government has invested more than $5 billion in new funding for an expensive, ineffective prison system, which contradicts the evidence of how to build stronger, more cohesive victims of crime and fewer victims," ​​Edwards said.

Maggie Munn, an Aboriginal director of the Human Rights Law Center, said the announcement was “shameful” and urged more investment in housing, health and legal services.

Sarah Tohey of Victoria, the Community Housing Industry Association, said $727 million will build more than 1,400 community housing properties for those in need, including release from prison as homeless people, with 40% of whom may re-offend.

"Investing in long-term housing … is both a crime prevention and a cost savings for the government in prisons," Tohey said.

Asked if there is more money for crime prevention to be included in the budget, Allen said: “We will have a lot to say from now until next Tuesday.”

The $727 million figure also matches the amount announced on Monday's "Open" subway tunnel project and introduces high-frequency services on Sunbury, Cranbourne and Pakenham Lines.

Green Party leader Ellen Sandell said the government has “all wrong” in its upcoming budget.

The empty $100 million Western Plains Correctional Center will open in July since its completion in 2023. It will replace the aging Port Phillip Prison, which is scheduled to be closed by the end of this year and once fully operational, can accommodate up to 1,300 prisoners.

Opposition police spokesman David Southwick said the 1,000 new beds announced by the government only offset those who were shut down in Port Phillip. The government raised objections to this.

Southwick added that other prisons also closed other beds due to mold infestation.

“They are throwing taxpayer money without real plans to solve this problem,” he said.

The government also introduced new legislation on Tuesday to require additional prison journeys for prisoners attacking correction personnel.