Treating children as criminals
As a criminal barrister I have advised many clients over the years whose murder convictions were based on attacks by small groups using improvised blunt weapons. They were unlucky enough that the victim鈥檚 injuries led to their death. The schoolboys in this case were perhaps lucky enough this didn鈥檛 happen.
If you attack someone with blunt instruments as part of a group action you are running the very real risk of a homicide conviction. The difference between a life sentence and a life representing a political party may be just a matter of inches.
The attackers in the Uffindell case were also lucky enough to avoid the justice system. This is significant because if you enter the justice system as a child (aged under 18 according to the听) it is remarkably difficult to get out.
Early conviction is a major predictor of future offending. What鈥檚 known as 鈥溾 suggests that defining someone as 鈥渃riminal鈥 at an early age helps create a self-fulfilling prophecy. Children treated as criminals early on begin to assume that identity.
For this reason, child rights advocates urge the use of听听of dealing with children who engage in criminality. An informal version of this is exactly what happened to Uffindell.
Scaling up forgiveness
Expulsion from school is certainly a harsh penalty. But in effect, Uffindell was simply moved to a different branch of the Anglican boarding school network. He avoided conviction and criminal punishment and went on to be forgiven and welcomed into the banking and political establishments.
This is, in fact, a great outcome for children who commit a crime. Their later lives are not ruined and they are able to grow out of their immature and violent phase. This forgiveness and informality is to be welcomed.
The question, then, is how do we take such forgiveness to scale? How do we ensure that someone with a different background, who committed the same offence in a different setting, also gets the benefit of this forgiveness? This is the new challenge for National.
Uffindell used part of his听听in parliament to mark himself out as tough on crime. He bemoaned (apparently without irony) 鈥渁 growing culture of lawlessness, lack of accountability, a sense of impunity鈥.
Less well reported were his calls for a 鈥渟ocial investment鈥 approach to reducing crime. This involves investing early in the lives of at-risk people to prevent the state being what Uffindell called 鈥渢he ambulance at the bottom of the cliff鈥.
As a beneficiary of forgiveness himself, perhaps he is open to more progressive justice policies.
New 麻豆传媒高清 out of step
There are many ways to reform the justice system for children. But the two biggest (and legislatively perhaps the easiest) reforms would be to raise the minimum age of criminal responsibility (MACR) and to eliminate life sentences for children.
Currently, both these policies mean New 麻豆传媒高清 is out of step with international standards. Our MACR is ten, a 鈥渓ow鈥 age听. Only three other OECD members share an MACR as low as this.
The New 麻豆传媒高清 Human Rights Commission has argued the minimum age should be听. While children aged ten and 11 are unlikely to have charges end in court,听听that ended in court in 2021 involved 12 and 13 year olds.
At present, once you鈥檝e reached the age of ten, the state can send you to prison for life. This happened only last week in New 麻豆传媒高清 to a听.
Again, this is out of step with听听and elsewhere. While the UK and the US do use life sentences for children, it鈥檚 notable that only one EU country (Ireland) imposes them.
If children committing serious offences can be managed without a life sentence in Germany and Spain, why can鈥檛 New 麻豆传媒高清 do it too? Instead of ruining more lives with life sentences and ineffective criminal convictions, why not reduce the scope and severity of penalties for children who offend?
Is it now time for the National Party 鈥 and others 鈥 to ask whether the forgiveness shown Uffindell should be extended to all young people. Major reform of the justice system for children is long overdue. Perhaps that can be Sam Uffindell鈥檚 legacy.
This article was originally published on听.听
