Louis Pierard
The Ministry of Justice's inaugural Youth Justice Statistics, released yesterday, confirm what many have long suspected: that teenage offending nationwide has increased.
Of more interest is the fact that while there had been a 39 percent rise in violent offending by youths aged 14 to 16 in the past two years, the number of cases sent to the district court or High Court for trial fell from 11 percent in 2003 to 5 percent in 2006.
New Zealand First MP Ron Mark, who proposes a law lowering the age of criminal responsibility from 14 years to 12, sees that as confirmation that the youth justice system is failing. It is difficult to disagree.
The beauty of statistics is the elasticity with which they can be interpreted. One Wellington police spokesman speculated that the higher number of arrests reflected the fact that the public were less tolerant of youth offending than in the past and were more likely to report it. Can that really be so? The Pollyanna argument - that there is not more crime, but just that we notice it more - regularly accompanies crime statistics. Is it not just as likely that the public, weary of crime being commonplace, would be less inclined to bother police with such incidents? If it were true the tolerance threshold was lower, it reveals a justice system out of step with public expectations.
The statistics indicate a greater use being made of alternatives to court - youths being dealt with by Police Youth Aid or being issued with formal warnings. If those alternatives were effective, one would expect it to register in lower arrest figures.
One needs to question whether such leniency can be salutary. Mr Mark and supporters of his bill are painted as vindictive and punitive where a little compassion and understanding might go a lot further. But the truth is, it hasn't.
Many youngsters soon realise the odds are stacked in their favour to preserve them from the consequences of bad behaviour. Parental dereliction in the home is matched by a magnanimous refusal outside it to take their crime seriously. Too often the only sense of responsibility they learn is that their circumstances can be blamed for their own criminal offending.
There can be no respect for the law if there is no fear of breaking it.
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