Having just read Heather Roy's description of what happened to the thirteen year-old girl who stole and crashed the ACT bus last year I was reminded that;83 percent of youth offending is dealt with out of court.
This approach is about non-stigmatisation of the offender and empowerment of the victim and offender.
Somehow I don't think Heather is feeling "empowered" right now.
(In fact, the girl was too young to be charged. The Youth Court deals with 15, 16 and 17 year-olds. Since 1974 the aim has been to divert those 14 and under, Children, away from court wherever possible. We no longer have a Children's Court.)
2 comments:
NZ already has one of the world's highest imprisonment rates.
And so many crimes go without a satisfactory resolution.
If we were to take all crime to its logical conclusion, we'd have a staggering imprisonment statistic.
Which begs the question:
WHY?
Not really.
Most of the crimes are committed by the same scumbags.
When a thief goes down for burgulary, he will have committed dozens, if not hundereds of other burgs that he will have gotten away with.
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