John MacDonald: I'm not going to bag ACT's thinking on teen crims

Here’s one thing I can pretty much guarantee: the ACT Party’s idea of dealing with 17-year-old criminal offenders in the adult courts, instead of the Youth Court, won’t reduce crime.

It just won’t. Because I actually don’t believe that tougher penalties or harsher approaches make any difference as to whether someone commits a crime or not.

Because if penalties were enough to keep people on the right side of the law, then we’d have no crime.

Now before you jump to the conclusion that I’m about to bag ACT for this policy it announced yesterday - calm the farm for a minute. I’ll get to that.

Darroch Ball: Where Is the Punishment and Accountability?

We need to stop making excuses for these idiot teen criminals.

We have created this environment for this sort of behaviour to fester – but our government, system, and media continue to give them every reason to continue to do what they’re doing and, worse, to encourage the recruitment of younger kids to do it.

So what if they are vulnerable, poor or uneducated or, dare I say it, ‘victims of colonisation’. Go tell that to the dairy owner when his business has been smashed and robbed for the fifth time this year, or when a baseball bat is swung at his head, or the security guard who just got bashed for it. How does that make it OK?