Copeland Gordon: Young Offenders (Serious Crimes) Bill — First Reading 
Copeland Gordon: Young Offenders (Serious Crimes) Bill — First Reading 
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GORDON COPELAND (United Future) 
: 
 First of all I want to congratulate Ron Mark on having his Young Offenders (Serious Crimes) Bill drawn from the ballot. I look forward to following its progression through this Parliament. 
I will begin as I sometimes do in first readings by standing back from the detail and looking at the climate that surrounds youth offending in this country. I was fortunate I think with hindsight to grow up in the 1950s when due to a lot of parental guidance and also very good public relations by the police we regarded policemen as our friends. We also had a very deep respect for the police which included an element of fear related to their ability to put us in prison. I believe it was a very very healthy thing in our society in those days. 
I have seen that change quite dramatically during my lifetime. Now—and I hope it is still in the minority—there is a significant element amongst young people and indeed as Metiria Turei describes them children who flout the knowledge that the police cannot lay a hand on them. Indeed that leads to a complete lack of respect—not only for the police but also for authority in general. 
Tony Blair is in our country at the moment or he may have just left. In the last election in Britain in 2005 this was a central issue. How do we avoid undue deference but get children and young people back to that basic value of respect and that certainly includes respect for the police? I believe that we have swung the pendulum too far in this country and therefore we will be supporting Ron’s bill. 
It was also United Future’s policy in the last election to reduce the current age of criminal responsibility from 14 years to 10 years. We also had a policy to establish brat camps run by the Army in cooperation with the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Health where persistent youth offenders would learn self-discipline and receive education training and counselling as a last resort before prison; I make that point to Pita Sharples. I do not like the title “brat camps”. Personally I prefer boot camps. I think that is a better spin. In other words we would be preparing these young people who have gone off the rails to stay on the rails for the rest of their life. That is the aim goal and objective of this bill. 
I think that those who jump straight to the conclusion that we are going to put kids in jail are really exaggerating what the bill sets out to do. We believe that it could work in conjunction with the young offenders legislation and be aimed at those people who commit a crime that falls just outside the definition of a serious crime—and that is the great majority of first-time offending by young people. 
We were also to establish a three-strikes rule for youth offenders whereby the number of family group conferences that youth offenders may face would be limited to three before the third offence triggers a custodial sentence. I agree with Dr Pita Sharples that family group conferences are very very worthwhile. I am strongly committed to them. But we also have to admit that for some particular types of personalities the smart alec personality who is unrepentant they are a flop. So we need to have something in place for that and that parallels very closely the terms of this bill. 
In respect of introducing tougher sentences we think that sentences should more accurately reflect the nature of offending the impact on victims and reflect the social denunciation of crime. We do as a society undoubtedly need to send a strong message to our young people that there are consequences for actions. We so often I believe in our society today pretend that consequences do not flow from actions. In real life they do and it is important that young people learn that principle very early on in my opinion. 
I would like to mention also that in England for example the age of criminal responsibility is 10 years—in other words it is 2 years lower than the 12 years promoted by this bill. So this bill is not radical. It brings us into line with other Western nations. It is United Future’s view that it has the potential to nip crime in the bud and that is a worthwhile objective at the earliest relevant point in a child’s development. I would like to make this point. Children on average know right from wrong at 7 years of age. It is tested I know because the Catholic Church has that test before it lets children receive Holy Communion and it works virtually every time. At 7 years of age a child knows what is right and what is wrong. Five years later if that child is still committing crime we need to get serious.