Although I am not a Christian I do believe in social redemption and when it comes to juveniles who commit crimes I am as ready as anyone to give them a shot at turning around their lives and hopefully becoming worthwhile citizens who make our a better society. However how many times should we be willing to allow juveniles the benefit of anonymity when they have faced the courts?  Frankly does anyone think that the chances of someone who has offended often enough to serve five periods of detention  before they reach their majority actually turning their behaviour around   are  very high?  Sadly I don’t think that the chances are measurable. to be honest.

So I am entirely unimpressed by the so called “civil liberties” arguments put against the naming of juvenile repeat offenders when they come before the courts. Its time that the bleeding hearts stop thinking that there is no such thing as a “bad” child. There certainly are individuals who begin their criminal careers at an early age and they are destined to a life of crime and that they will be immune to any attempts to “reform” them. Now while I readily admit that these individuals may well come from situations of abuse and social despair but there has to be a point at which society’s need to be protected from their aberrant and abhorrent behaviour out weighs the very small possibility that they may be redeemed.

  It may be arbitrary but “three strikes and you will be named”  seems to be a place to start. If a young offender commits two crimes that result in periods of detention then their next offence should lose them any right to have their names and images suppressed.

Cheers Comrades

Update:

It probably won’t surprise anyone that our learned friend has come out fighting for the right of juveniles to be treated very softly by the courts even when they are clearly repeat offenders

Here’s their latest effort:

Attorney-General Jarrod Bleijie wants all juvenile offenders to be publicly named when they attend court, unless a judge orders otherwise.

Currently children can only be identified when a judge deems the case warrants naming.

Wait, what? Does Bleijie not understand that the reason for emphasising rehabilitation over deterrence with young people is that their brains aren’t fully formed and the clear evidence is that deterrence is far less effective than programs to redirect their lives? That giving them a criminal history early on simply prevents them from ever having a hope of doing something else with their lives?

Any realist would not make the mistake of thinking that someone who has established a pattern of repeated offending by the time they are an adolescent is extremely unlikely  to be reformable or that they will ever do anything else with their lives. Our learned friend think that even with a chance of them being rehabilitated at an immeasurably low level we should still pretend that they can be “saved” ? Name them and then if they keep their noses clean for a decade then let them “forget” about their record as we do here in Queensland.

Mr Bleijie says most children who appear in court are repeat offenders and naming them could force them to take responsibility for their actions.

“A lot of young repeat offenders who know that the reporters and journalists can’t report names, come out of court smiling and living among their communities and the communities ought to have a right to know,” he said.

“And also if there’s a little bit of community pressure put on these young people, perhaps it will actually deter these young people from committing these crimes in the future.”

Actually, you blithering idiot, that’s exactly the way to turn young, impressionable people into lifelong criminals. Young people committing crimes are more likely to respond to severe censure by defiantly identifying with criminal peers. It takes maturity to learn to evaluate risk properly and it takes maturity to persevere through difficult circumstances.

I think the person who is blithering here is our learned friend if he really thinks that a juvenile who has been repeatedly  before the courts and had several spells in juvenile detention has not already become a lifelong criminal. Further the fact that they have repeatedly failed to respond to the modest ” censure” of the juvenile justice system should tell him that his preferred option is not working for those repeat offenders .

Completely destroying a kid’s life if they don’t make decisions like a rational adult is incredibly counterproductive.

How many chances does he want to give these young  toe rags? Surely its good sense to draw a line at a certain number of times that these offenders should be treated with leniency when they come before the courts? A clear expectation that they have to show at least some improvement in their behaviour before they are given the metaphorical slap on the wrist for any  subsequent offence? our learned friend surely can be so naive that he believes that every one of these repeat offenders can be reformed?

First Robert Clark in Victoria, now Bleijie in Queensland. What is it with right-wing Attorneys-General and a pigheaded bloody-minded determination to stomp about in a field they clearly barely understand, dismantling systems that have been developed for a good reason, refusing to listen to experts and making matters worse?

Ah maybe there is a clue here in his conclusion; its his arrogance that anyone from outside the lawyers club should dare to have an opinion about justice and the role of the law in our society. One does not have to be a lawyer to understand that just because there is a “good reason” for a particular system it does not mean that it actaully works. The idea of treating the so called “children” as if they are redeemable when they have repeatedly demonstrated that they aren’t  is leftist  driven nonsense of the worst kind. But then what do you expect from our learned friend?

Related articles

• Qld wants to name and shame young offenders (abc.net.au)
• The victims of crime deserve swift justice (telegraph.co.uk)
• It’s So Juvenile: Court Of Appeals Of Minnesota Finds An Extended-Jurisdiction Juvenile Adjudication Not Covered By Rule 609(d) (lawprofessors.typepad.com)
• When Should Juvenile Offenders Receive Life Sentences? (learning.blogs.nytimes.com)
• Juvenile Offenders Sentenced To Life Can Face Harsher Treatment Than Adults: Report (huffingtonpost.com)