Junior Justice.
Posted by Big John on October 24, 2007
When I first read about the latest government ‘gimmick’ to introduce so called ‘children’s courts’ I thought that the idea sounded ridiculous.
How on earth can you have kids as young as ten sitting in judgement on young tearaways ? … Surely you have to be mature and experienced before you can make judgments and hand out punishments to others ?
Well I could be wrong if two recent cases are anything to go by, where a couple of bewigged buffoons once again failed to ensure that ‘the punishment fitted the crime’.
The first case was described by Judge Warwick McKinnon as … “A vicious, entirely unprovoked and sustained group attack“… which resulted in the death of a man from a heart attack. He then went on to sentence the five yobs involved to two years detention, which means that they will each serve only one year watching TV and playing pool in some young offenders holiday camp centre.
The second case involved a savage attack on a 96 year old man which left him blind in one eye. The vicious arsehole who carried out this attack was seen on the TV news leaving court grinning from ear to ear, after Judge Kenneth Macrae said that ‘banging him up’ … “would do nothing to protect the public in the future” … he went on to say … ”my real concern is the public“.
So what did this judicial ’guardian’ of the public do ? … He put this dangerous thug back on the streets in the care of ‘psychiatrists’ and ‘probation officers’ for three years. What are the chances of him turning up for his ‘treatment’ ?
I believe that in the USA some judges have to be elected to ‘the bench’ by the public. Maybe it’s about time we did the same here, or perhaps we should just leave it to the ‘ten year olds’, and …
… put a booster seat on ‘it’.
Betty said
Well, there are good points and bad points to electing our judges. One of the bad points is that the judiciary becomes increasingly political. Interesting idea – children as “a jury of peers”. Kids judged by kids. They might be a lot harder on the defendants.
gawilli said
Our local courts invite groups of kids in for mock trials and it has been a good experience for them. I agree with Betty. I think they may not be as tolerant as the judiciary.