Youth Serious Offenders

The Herald reports:

A new sentencing category – Young Serious Offender – will be introduced, allowing judges to send offenders to military-style academies.

It would apply to teenagers aged 14 to 17 years at the time of the offending, have had two offences punishable by imprisonment of 10 years or more proven in court are assessed as being likely to reoffend with previous interventions having proven unsuccessful.

Two offences with a maximum sentence of 10 years or more, will mean these are indeed very serious youth offenders. This will not be your ram raider or burglar. The types of offences that would qualify are:

• Murder
• Manslaughter
• Sexual Violation
• Wounding or Injuring with intent to cause GBH
• Aggravated Wounding

Labour’s children’s spokeswoman Willow-Jean Prime said sending these kinds of children, many of whom would have experienced abuse of suffered deep trauma, to the camps could cause further harm.

“Forcing these kinds of children into boot camps is cruel and takes our youth rehabilitative system backwards.

I don’t know about you, but if they have raped two people before they turn 18, then the rehabilitation system isn’t working that well already!

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