Last year the Criminal Bar Association’s president and King’s Counsel Fiona Guy Kidd sent an open letter to Kiri Allan, Paul Goldsmith, Nicole McKee, Golriz Ghahraman, Winston Peters, Raf Manji, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer, and Rawiri Waititi.
The leaked letter implored the politicians “to adopt an evidence-based approach to criminal lawand justice, rather than treating policy-making in this area as a political football.
“Such policy needs to be considered cooly and calmly,” she said. If only the letter was taken into consideration.
Months later, National Party leader Christopher Luxon delivered his infamous (well to me, anyway) “no apologies” speech, that aimed to take a tough approach to law and order.
“Sentences are a punishment, a deterrent, and they show the public that justice is being done,” he said.
Youth would receive a reduced sentence for their youth, and for remorse, only once. Thereafter, the ship had sailed, he said.
Cue Labour’s youth justice policies that were announced this month. The package, designed to curb a recent spike in youth offending, will see 12 and 13-year-olds being charged in the Youth Court.
Youth offenders will face more accountability for their crimes, the official statement read while I sighed and looked longingly into the distance.
National’s Paul Goldsmith went on to propose introducing a new serious offender category for 10-17 year-olds. This month, the Act party proposed reducing adult court ages from 18 to 17 years.
National's justice spokesman Paul Goldsmith has proposed introducing a new serious offender category for 10-17 year-olds. Photo / Mark Mitchell
As an aside, the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child says adults are aged 18 years and over.
Ratified in Aotearoa, the convention says “no child shall be deprived of his or her liberty unlawfully or arbitrarily. The arrest, detention or imprisonment of a child shall be in conformity with the law and shall be used only as a measure of last resort and for the shortest appropriate period of time”.
Far cry from expert advice
Contrast National, Act, and Labour’s punitive focus on youth offending to experts Nessa Lynch, Tamara Wilson-Tasi, clinical psychology professor Ian Lambie, and Children’s Commissioner Judge Andrew Beecroft.
In the 2021 paper “Four Urgent Law Changes for the Youth Justice System”, the legal and science heavyweights recommended the removal of the Youth Court’s power to remand young people to police cells irrespective of the circumstances, and to raise the minimum age of criminal responsibility to 14 years.
Criminal responsibility was set at 10 years in 1961, despite being contrary to human rights standards and not reflecting contemporary evidence on developmental and cognitive psychology, or brain development, they said.
What’s more, they implored policymakers not to charge or sentence youth in adult courts, citing these people were likely to be “those facing the greatest adversity and with the highest and most complex needs”.
On top of drafting letters to politicians, Fiona Guy Kidd spoke at the 150th anniversary of law at Otago University earlier this year.
She called on the government officials to shift their focus away from a heavy-handed approach and to focus on prohibiting the imposition of life imprisonment on children and young people. Among the 70 youth in prison, the core were serving murder sentences.
Between 2002 and 2019, for example, 967 people were convicted of murder, and 40 of those were under 18.
“These punitive sentences are harmful and ineffective and outcomes for these children should end in reintegration and rehabilitation,” she said.
“It is a cruel, inhumane, and degrading punishment. Life sentences are difficult for children to comprehend. Psychological evidence suggests you don’t have the clinical comprehension to understand what a life sentence actually means when you’re under 18.”
For context, children aged 10 or more can be prosecuted for murder and manslaughter. There is no special regime, rules, or exceptions relating to sentencing. The presumption favours life imprisonment, which requires mandatory minimum sentences of 10 years, and release conditions continue until death.
Release conditions could mean having to meet a probation officer at least once a fortnight for the rest of the child’s life.
In the game of political football, it seems it’s one-all for the National, Labour, and Act parties, who appear to have lost their humanity in the process.
