Where’s follow up on crime
NOW that the dust has settled so to speak on the recent crime meeting, looking back on it Police Minister Mark Ryan said that he would engage with the judiciary with regards to the sentencing of offenders to fall in line with community expectations.
Now that sounds good and positive but we have supposedly a separation of powers, or should have, and that being the case the Minister can advise the judiciary of the sentiment of the community, but with regards to dictating the type of or length of sentence handed down to the individual is a matter for the court, providing the court is working within the legislation enacted by parliament, or the sentence is manifestly inadequate. If the legislation is too lenient on offenders the parliament has only itself to blame.
On page 18 ( TB 2/20) an article appeared on crime and crime statistics where a statement was made and I quote: “Soaring low level offences like burglary and car theft”.
Since when has burglary and car theft been a low level offence.
Whoever wrote that comment wants to wake up to themselves. Those comments are a joke in anyone’s language. The crimes mentioned are serious crimes and must be treated as such by the judiciary.
Now we have to look at some form of deterrent to deter either would-be offenders or recidivists from committing such crimes and/or reoffending. Having limited knowledge of the workings of the youth detention centre (the public must not know) it would appear the deterrent value of the centre in deterring would-be offenders and recidivists is somewhat limited by the sheer number of criminals making return visits to the centre.
From speaking to people in the know, the centre has none or very little deterrent value, but the place should be a no-go area for would-be offenders. If the place was run in my opinion as it should be, the term recidivist would not have to used as there would not be any, because having been sent there once you don’t want to go back.
I would suggest that the fluffy duck treatment that is metered out is a waste of time; flowered shirts didn’t seem to work, blue shirts cannot be part of the guards uniform as it looks too much like a police uniform and looks too authoritative, and the list goes on.
As mentioned earlier the public must not know the goings on in the centre. One such case was an individual known as the spitter. No guesses as to why. However one day he let one go which hit one of the guards in the eyes, nose and mouth. That person has to stay away from family for about six weeks until cleared of any disease. When I was told about this incident I simply said, silly me, just put a spit mask on him when he’s in public only to be told we can’t do that, it’s against his rights, go figure.
Newspaper headlines 17/2 says it all, we have had do-gooders, bleeding hearts and so on advocating the softly softly approach and over the last five years where has it got us – to where we are now, complete anarchy.
Young teenagers holding up a bus in broad daylight others trying to hijack cars brandishing a knife while academics inform the populous that locking the offenders up is not the answer. What is the answer then? One has to wonder what the outcome would be if the mentioned offences had taken place in Singapore?
We have had five years of this and under the current regime, and there is no end in sight to crime. People must not have to live as we do, some of us in constant fear of being attacked and robbed or have the vehicle stolen and wrecked just for the fun of it. Until examples are made of the culprits for all to see nothing will change.
As one reader of the paper said in a text recently the criminals fear nothing as there is nothing to fear.
Putting it bluntly, we are in a mess and we have a disease and sometimes the cure for the disease should be unpalatable to some, lock up the offenders as has been said many times before. It is very difficult to break into people’s homes and steal vehicles if you are locked up in a cell, and they are not let out until they learn to respect themselves, other people and other people’s property. It is called choices. DAVID THOUMINE,
Cranbrook.