KEY POINTS:
Some of the provisions in a bill making children as young as 12 responsible for their crimes have the support of the Police Association.
However, association president Greg O'Connor agreed with Youth Court judge Andrew Becroft, who said last week Ron Mark's private members' bill would effectively make the Youth Court redundant by siphoning off about 80 per cent of its cases to adult courts.
Mr O'Connor told the law and order select committee yesterday that it would be "a folly" to strip the Youth Court of its strength but the association did back the bill's measure for the age of criminal responsibility to be lowered to cover 12 and 13-year-olds because under present law police were powerless to intervene with children at risk of becoming more serious offenders.
Association member Steve O'Connor - a youth aid officer in Lower Hutt - said a lowered age of criminality should apply across the board rather than just for those committing serious offences.
"I would suggest any offending could be the appropriate trigger that would allow us to intervene. If we just sit on our hands and say 'oh, it's just a wee bit of cannabis', then we let the creep effect come in and wait until the age of 14 then we miss the opportunity for early intervention."
He said police were a 24-hour, seven-day social service who "pick up the pieces".
"Part of it is to identify young boys who have all the markers to go on to be serious offenders. Fifteen and 16-year-olds don't suddenly become violent. Two per cent of our boys start off as child offenders and tend to become serious offenders at 15 or 16."
Steve O'Connor said police intervention did not necessarily mean locking children up or going to court. A significant number of encounters were not recorded, because police were "user-friendly" with younger children, tending to deliver them home to parents with a talking-to rather than writing it up and "criminalising their behaviour".
He said of about 1200 files he saw each year, about 80 per cent were "normal kids, who made a mistake who normally respect the law".
