At the same time the National Party was announcing its plan for boot camps and ankle bracelets for young offenders from the age of 10, a 14-year-old Christchurch boy was in the Youth Court admitting 48 criminal charges after a spate of car thefts and assaults in the city last month.
You’ll remember all the stuff that was going on. Some this kid was involved in, some he wasn’t. And the stuff he was in court admitting to yesterday was over-and-above other charges from earlier in the year.
So, for all intents and purposes, he is a kid out of control, isn’t he?
And he’s the type of kid the National Party has in its sights with its boot camp and ankle bracelet policy.
Because he’s 14, this guy would be too young to go to boot camp but he would probably end up wearing an ankle bracelet. We got in touch with the National Party to confirm that but they said they don’t comment on specific cases.
But I think it’s safe to assume that this boy would be at home with a bracelet around the ankle if National policy was in place.
Now, is it just me, or have the photos of Christopher Luxon that the media have used in the past 24 hours made him look like a bit of an enforcer? No coincidence - but then, I don’t imagine he will be too upset.
After all, he and Mark Mitchell want to look tough on this one because they know people have had a gutsful of crime.
Not surprisingly, National’s political opponents and others are saying that boot camps and ankle bracelets aren’t the answer, and they’re accusing National of living in the past and not just rehashing old policy, but repeating a policy or an approach they say hasn’t worked previously.
But, of course, the people who don’t like what Luxon and Mark Mitchell have come up with don’t seem to be able to come up with an alternative of their own.
And they’re pointing to statistics that suggest previous attempts at this sort of thing haven’t stopped young people from offending again - and so National’s opponents are saying ‘case closed’ - it hasn’t worked before, so it won’t work this time around either.
But my view is that sometimes you just have to give things a go. And when it comes to criminal offenders, you’re never going to come up with the perfect solution.
I know people talk about wraparound services and holistic approaches, but when you’ve got businesses being done over night-after-night, people’s cars being stolen night-after-night, houses being broken into every day and every night, teenagers at the malls getting hidings, people being knocked of their bike by idiots in stolen cars - when you’ve got all that happening, surely it’s worth giving things a go.
Because, at the moment, we have a youth justice system that could quite reasonably be called a dismal failure. That’s because the majority of kids that go through the Youth Justice system re-offend.
So, obviously, we cannot claim that sticking the really bad ones in these facilities has been a huge success, so why not try something else?
Chances are not even boot camps and ankle bracelets will get them some of these kids on the straight and narrow. Because some of them are so damaged and desperate, that they are beyond help.
But, surely, even if the idea of a boot camp sounds old-school, or like something out of the 1950s, or not liberal enough for the 21st Century, what’s the harm in giving it a go?
And sure, the idea of an ankle bracelet on a 10-year-old does sound extreme - but the kids that would be wearing these things would be extreme cases.
Again, why not give it a go? Because even if it stops one kid from re-offending and avoiding a lifetime of crime, it’s worth a shot, isn’t it?