Last Thing Kurariki Needs Is To Go Home

Monday 8 Sep 2003 Dr Muriel Newman Press Releases -- Social Welfare

The Parole Board's report that Bailey Junior Kurariki will be eligible for release in January, and can now apply for home detention, is an indictment of Labour's new Sentencing Laws, ACT New Zealand Social Welfare Spokesman Dr Muriel Newman said today.

"It is absolutely outrageous that, after committing a crime so brutal, an offender guilty of manslaughter can be looking at going home after serving only around two years of his sentence," Dr Newman said.

"At a briefing of the Social Services Select Committee Youth Justice inquiry, the Justice Ministry found that all these young offenders shared a common negative factor in their lives - `their families are unable to control their behaviour'.

"Placing Kurariki back into the same family environment which contributed to his problems in the first place would be completely ludicrous.

"Kurariki needs a structured environment - with boundaries, discipline and education - not a home environment where, if the past is anything to go by, these could be missing," Dr Newman said.

ENDS

For more information visit ACT online at http://www.act.org.nz or contact the ACT Parliamentary Office at act@parliament.govt.nz.

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