The Sensible Sentencing Trust has launched a blistering attack on The Opportunity Party’s policy to raise the age of Youth Court jurisdiction, describing it as one of the craziest ideas it has seen in years.
Opportunity’s “Smart on Crime” policy promised until recently to “raise the age of the youth court jurisdiction to 25, in line with developmental science”.
The words “to 25” were quietly removed from the party’s website between March and late July, while the commitment to lift the age remained.
Party leader Qiulae Wong was unable to say last week where the new limit should be set.
Sensible Sentencing Trust spokeswoman Louise Parsons said the original proposal was extreme and dismissed the suffering of victims on the basis of an offender’s age.
“Around 25 percent of all sexual violence and 30 percent of all crime is committed by offenders aged 18 to 25,” she said. “Sending them to the Youth Court will only reduce consequences, hide offending from the media and the public, and will incentivise more crime, because there are far fewer consequences.”
TOP’s policy is for 24 year old rapists and bashers to get sent to a family group conference, instead of face criminal responsibility for their actions. They are more extreme than the Greens.
David Farrar runs Curia Market Research, a specialist opinion polling and research agency, and the popular Kiwiblog where this article was sourced. He previously worked in the Parliament for eight years, serving two National Party Prime Ministers and three Opposition Leaders
3 comments:
Will they (TOP) also propose raising the voting age, driving age, alcohol purchase, firearms, etc., etc., to 25 based on the same "developmental 'science'(?)"?
We cannot underestimate that the "public," by and large, isn't too keen on factual, evidence-based discussions. Emotions, anger, and outrage reach many more people, much more quickly, because thinking isn't required.
On this basis, TOP will need time to get momentum simply because the poor regular everyday folks on Facebook simply aren’t their target outrage market.
I liked Anonymous ' comment . This idea of developmentalism which like much of 'Developmental Theory' is psych -social drivel .
It is an excuse for those who just don't want to take responsibility for their own actions . The suggestion is we are just biological creatures who can't take control of ourselves . Motivated and driven by impulses and instincts. More of Evolutionary over-reach like Whole Language reading method which is based on idea we all naturally learn to read without any explicit instruction needed. All so natural. We have failed to have discipline in our schooling because the belief is we are naturally good, and this is the result. Recklessness , lack of responsibility and 'taking risks' are virtues. Like guessing in reading .
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