Soft on crime catchcry

The catchcry “soft on crime”, recently resurrected by the National Party, is now being bandied about by anyone with a beef against this Government. What exactly do these people want? Do they want a police state where almost everything is controlled by the police? Or do they want to bring back capital punishment? Do they want taxpayers’ money to barricade all dairies? Do they want young ram raiders locked up with thugs and murderers?

While we all sympathise and mourn the death of Janak Patel, the punishment in this country for his alleged murderer, who is an adult male, will be totally different from that of the young kids who are doing the ram-raiding. Violent crime, which is peddled nightly on entertainment media, has its roots in poverty and poor parenting. It has long been proven that severe punishment is not a deterrent.

Sue Rawson