Conscience and Consequence
AUTHOR: Judy Turner
Are we born with a conscience or is it bred into us? My experience as a classroom teacher lhas ed me to believe that by the time a child is about 8 years old, their sense of right and wrong is well established. Without direct and deliberate intervention it will remain unchanged at 18 and 28.
So when we find children and young people offending how should society respond?
Media last week reported that children too young to prosecute have been implicated in more than 8500 crimes in one year, with police saying they are often powerless to intervene.
I immediately thought of a Bill currently before a Select Committee in the name of Ron Mark to lower the age of prosecution from 14 to 12 and to introduce tougher penalties for young offenders who commit serious crimes.
The current situation is that “Youth Offenders” are defined as 14 – 16 year olds and if the offending is serious, they are able to be dealt with in the Youth Court. An important feature of the Youth Court process is the Family Group Conference (FGC). The FGC emphasises accountability and family involvement in the resolution of a young person’s offending.
“Child Offenders” are 10 – 13 year olds and can only be charged with murder and manslaughter, otherwise their offending can be dealt with in the Family Court. The children are usually taken home or back to school by the police for parents and teachers to deal with. As a first step that could well be all that is necessary. But a small group of recidivist offenders are currently slipping through the cracks. Where violence is a feature of their offending we do the child no favours by under-reacting.
Mr Mark’s bill makes me uncomfortable because it is focused on prosecution and penalties. At the same time, a bill to empower the Police or some agency to set in motion both a consequence and an intervention for child offenders must be given serious consideration.
It is plain nuts to have a 10 year old who attacked classmates with a piece of timber, two 12 year olds with 33 burglary charges, and a 13 year old who attacked police with a baseball bat and our fantastic NZ Police saying they are powerless to do anything.
Where should the balance lie?