The outcome wasn't in the same street as the Henderson murder, but Kaitaia cafe proprietor Jenny Petera expressed firm views about how children should be raised, and the degree to which adults should be held accountable for their behaviour, after her business was broken into last week for the second time in seven days. Apart from questioning why she was working seven days a week to keep her business going, and employing six people in the process, she was struggling to understand how children (those widely suspected of both burglaries are juveniles) could behave in such a fashion with apparent impunity. The police have hopes of laying charges, but the families of these children apparently have no role to play at all. That really sticks in Mrs Petera's craw. And so it should.
As the late great Frankie Howerd might have put it, the laws in this country, at least as they apply to marauding children, are asp about Thrace. While most might agree that we don't want to see child offenders treated as adults, most will struggle to understand why those who have legal responsibility for these children aren't held accountable.
This newspaper has noted in the past, and will do so again, that the owner of a dog that causes harm to a person or property is legally responsible for the animal's actions. No question. So why is it different when the harm is done by a child? How is it that parents, guardians, caregivers or whatever you want to call them, are seemingly absolved of all legal responsibility when a child runs amok?
The police don't charge them (if failing to provide a child with care and protection is still a crime it's one that they don't bother with these days), and society doesn't demand much either. The common responses seem to be to accept that there's nothing we can do to change the ways of third-rate parents, or to commiserate with those who should be accepting responsibility for how hard life has been for them.
Nothing will change until that attitude changes. Children don't grow into juvenile killers, burglars, drunks or thugs without significant failure on the part of at least one adult. And anyone who wants to talk about the difficulties some of today's parents faced as children should not do so within Jenny Petera's hearing. She's right - countless kids do it tough but don't grow up to be criminals.
The Henderson 13-year-old's mother reportedly had a less than ideal start in life, losing her father when she was a toddler. So what? Does losing a parent at a young age inevitably set a child on a life of crime? No it doesn't, but listen carefully and you will hear the excuses for the foul act this boy has allegedly committed being concocted in the background.
It may well be that this child has never had a chance of leading a normal life, but the point is that he wasn't born bad. He was made bad by adults who should now be accountable for that. If he was a dog with a penchant for killing chooks his owner would now be before the court. Now that he has allegedly murdered a man his mother probably won't come into the legal picture at all.
If he was a dog that had not been provided with the 'necessaries' of life, his owner would be in jeopardy of a hefty fine or imprisonment and a ban on owning animals in the future. Because he is a human child whose upbringing has clearly been inadequate, his prime carer is seemingly of no interest to the law.
The current government recognises this. That's why it has promulgated changes to the bail legislation that will make adults responsible for ensuring that juveniles comply with the terms of court bail. That's a start, but that's all it is. And take note of the politicians who tried very hard to stop that change from being made. Presumably they see nothing wrong with adults abrogating their responsibilities, or with children wreaking havoc while their parents watch from the sidelines.
What we need is a legal system that holds adults accountable for the actions of their juvenile children, just as we demand legal responsibility on the part of dog owners. That must be accompanied by a united response by the plethora of welfare agencies, from police to CYF and the ministries of health and education, to potential problems within individual families. Intervention must be swift and early - it's a bit late when the kids are amusing themselves by robbing dairies at knifepoint. Alarm bells should ring within every agency at the first sign of trouble, which one imagines is likely to be truancy.
When a child starts missing school the response needs to be swift and comprehensive, to determine what the problem is and to address it. The adults with a moral (if not legal) responsibility for the child need to be given what help they need, and made to understand that if their child runs amok, they will be held responsible.
We have to stop making excuses for those who allow their children to destroy their lives, and frequently disrupt, even end the lives of others, unless we are prepared to accept that that's just the way life in New Zealand is these days, and there is nothing we can do about it. If nothing is done at a political level the response will come in the streets, in homes and shops, as the victims of feral children begin taking the law into their own hands. Then we really will have anarchy.
