It is broken

Today's editorial in the Taranaki Daily News and my response below;

If it's not broken no reason trying to fix it

The crimes can be shocking: young children, some as young as 13, involved in violent crimes. Even murder.

As a society we struggle to comprehend how this can happen: where did we go wrong, what have we become? And often we want to hit out, isolate and punish these young criminals, says the Taranaki Daily News.

But NZ First's move to lock up kids for all manner of crimes is way off the mark (excuse the bad pun).

Ron Mark's Young Offender (Serious Crimes) Bill is so far off the mark that principal Youth Court judge Andrew Becroft has slammed it as "abysmally drafted".

That's a nice way to say that it's just plain wrong. Wrong because Judge Becroft says family group conferences and the Youth Court are working to keep these kids on the right path. And wrong because he believes the crisis Mr Mark highlights of problem teens running amok is simply not there.

"Where is the statistical evidence to suggest offending by 10 to 13-year-olds is spiralling out of control?" he asks. He believes figures in fact show youth offending remaining relatively steady.

It's also wrong because children who commit the most serious of crimes can already be sent to adult courts and sentenced to jail.

Bailey Junior Kurariki is a classic example, jailed after becoming one of the country's youngest killers at age 13.

What could possibly be achieved by turfing out a system that successfully deals with young criminals in the community, not in courts, and gives them a chance to redeem themselves, and replacing it with harsher penalties for kids and a system that sets them up for a life of crime, putting them among hardened crims.

Mr Mark's bill passed its first reading because of an election deal with Labour. Let's hope that's as far as it gets.

Dear Sir

I am befuddled by Judge Becroft who spends a lot of time trying to allay public fears that youth offending is worsening (eg his published paper 'Putting the headlines in context') but on another occasion will freely admit that a sub-group of teenagers is becoming more violent. (Taranaki Daily News, May 7, 2007). 13 year-olds do not suddenly become nasty little pieces when they turn 14. Logically then we need, in certain cases, to be heavier handed at an earlier age, not by putting children in adult prisons but by detaining them in youth facilities - for the sake of public safety.

Neither am I reassured by Becroft's claim that statistics do not show increased offending. Our youth justice approach and philosophy for the last one hundred years has constantly shifted the goalposts. We increasingly trivialise criminality (what kids were put into the care of the state for in the early 1900s wouldn't turn a hair on anyone's head today) and increasingly divert children from court. Hence over time the available statistics remain relatively stable while underneath that facade is a steadily worsening situation.

Ron Mark's bill might not be the answer but as he says, neither is the status quo.