The latest study into our ram raiding teens highlights these are children of trauma being exacerbated by post-Covid ruptures..
Study finds link between young ram-raiders and family harm events
A study has provided a startling look into the link between youth involved in ram-raids and family harm.
The Police National Youth Team prepared notes for the Children’s Commissioner about the relationship between family harm and youths identified in recent ram-raid events.
A sample of 63 children and young people was drawn from those involved in ram-raids in Christchurch, the Bay of Plenty, Auckland, and Waikato, in the year to May 2022.
Their ages ranged from 10 to 18 years old, with an average of 14.4.
…these ram raiding teens are the legacy of John Key’s punitive prison policies and social welfare failures.
These were the children living in cars that National ignored.
These were the children who’s fathers were in prison when National mass incarcerated.
These were the children who National threw out onto the streets over the State Housing meth scam.
Their predictable explosion should shame us for the failed services we’ve provided, and yet the cry from National is for more punitive sentences…
Meanwhile, National’s justice spokesperson Paul Goldsmith maintains there needs to be harsher consequences for youths involved in serious crimes like ram-raids.
…while ACT want children in ankle bracelets.
So what does Marama Davidson, Minister for the Prevention of Family and Sexual Violence have to say about this research highlighting that these children are from trauma?
Why her first statement is to ensure we don’t think victimised people will cause crime, which is just so eye rolling…
Minister for the Prevention of Family and Sexual Violence, Marama Davidson, said it’s important to keep in mind the majority of people who are victims and survivors of violence are not criminals.
…of course Minister, no one is saying every kid who has experienced trauma will commit crime, but the fact these kids have experienced trauma demands more empathy, so where is the empathy?
“When you have people involved with violence – let’s say a politician who may have caused violent harm to someone at a boarding school. When they are wrapped with support, understanding, forgiveness, and given opportunities to carry on and lead a good life – that’s how we can interrupt cycles of violence. That is how people can be supported to lead healthy lives.”
Cue jaw dropping now.
The Minister is using Sam Uffindell as a point scoring exercise for traumatised children committing crime?
The Minister will be so glad that Kelvin Davis fucked up in Parliament and stole all the limelight and this banal comment was ignored.
Davidson launched a strategy last year called Te Aorerekura, a which is a comprehensive, generational, 25-year strategy to eliminate family and sexual violence.
But, it requires a whole different way of working across government.
“The evidence, the community, the sector experts at the forefront of family and sexual violence have been very clear for a long time that we need enduring solutions. That’s why the simplistic short-term ‘tough on crime’, ‘tough on youth’ responses do not work,” she said.
…and yet this Government passed changes to the Sexual Assault Laws to ensure more men accused of rape are found guilty.
I appreciate the point scoring the Minister is attempting to make here with Uffindell, but I’m not sure this is the time or place for that pettiness.
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Marama Davidson encapsulates perfectly the woke shitfest we are currently drowning in . . ignoring real issues and instead grandstanding on trivial shit that only serves to score her points with her divisive and brain washed TikTok lynch mob / also clearly fueling a shift to the right by those who otherwise would have no desire to be there.
Marama wanted to reclaim the ‘c’ word, now it seems she wants to embody it …..
I don’t think this is the worst response Marama has had – also don’t believe the youth criminals parents should get off being violent with the idea that the government did it all to them.
You can be poor and still look after and protect your kids in NZ. Good parenting is not about money.
NZ needs to get the balance right between supporting violent parent offenders who are completely fucked up and making them take responsibility for their actions and their parenting, and supporting and protecting their victims.
Don’t think the woke or right wing have the right balance yet.
I always return to the Dunedin Multi disciplinary study that show crime addiction teenage pregnancy problem gambling and poor health is associated with poor self control at 3 years old regardless of socio economic factors. And good self control can be taught. If I was looking for answers, I’d look to this study. Not a popular view I think.
Other than that I have no answers
and these were the children whose grandparents and great grandparents were brutally abused and dispossed in the processes of colonisation. brutality begets brutality.
we have not dealt with intergenerational truama.
part of what has prevented healing is the competitive and heirarchical nature of all of the professions involved with health and wellbeing. who have been trying to convince each other and public servants and government that they are the ones who know what they are doing and others dont.
see the colonising practices of the psychology profession who have been churning out thin research on themselves for decades to convince people that they are the sole delivereers of best practice for mental health issues.
as if intergenerational truama is an individual mental health issue!
it is a whanau, hapu, community, national issue that can only be addressed when we resource those entities to address it, bypassing the dominant professional heirarchies. and can only be addressed when we start taking collective healing seriously.
marama davidson is just lost in all the professional advise coming her way.
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