Cindy Kiro's stance on Youth Justice lacks punch

Cindy Kiro, the pointlessly useless Children's Commissioner has whipped herself into a lather (that has got to be illegal!) over Nationals plan to to something about some of our moronic, wasted youth by putting them in "boot camps".

Tougher, longer sentences have not deterred criminals and all the evidence suggests initiatives that are punitive, employ shock-tactics, or use corrective training as the basis for reforming young offenders are largely ineffective.

"The most effective ways of reforming child and youth offenders focus on addressing the issues in their lives rather than just dishing out punishment. Reform comes from teaching them new skills for addressing their problems. "The hype around escalating serious youth offending and alleged public concerns about unsafe communities is not supported by data. The figures have stayed quite steady for the past 10 years. voxy.co.nz

Ciro underplays the seriousness of the problem and ignores the fact that "tougher sentences" are not being applied at all, in fact quite often young offenders do not get punished or get made to takes responsibility at all and that is the problem we are talking about here.

Kiro's stance is yet more evidence that she is out of touch, ignorant of the facts and not doing her job properly.

c Political Animal 2009