YELLOW TRIANGLE PREVENTION PROJECT

Media Release

YELLOW TRIANGLE PREVENTION PROJECT LAUNCHED TO OPPOSE THE UNDER 25 SCHEME

The Yellow Triangle Prevention Project has announced its launch today. The project, set up to form a coalition of groups and individuals opposed to the Christchurch Police's "Catch a Car Thief - Under 25 Scheme", aims to abolish the Under 25 Scheme in Christchurch and prevent it from going nationwide.

The Yellow Triangle Prevention Project believes that the Police's Under 25 Scheme is unfair because it negatively stereotypes all young people as car thieves, increases insurance rates for people under 25, increases and redirects car theft towards people under 25, and sets a dangerous precedent for future discrimination.

The key of aims of the Yellow Triangle Prevention Project are to highlight the negative and unfair aspects of the scheme, to campaign strongly for the scheme to be abolished and to find positive solutions to stop youth discrimination.

Yani Johanson, Project Coordinator said today:

"This project offers a voice for those young people and others who are concerned about the dangerous precedent that the under 25 scheme sets. If society allows this scheme to continue, then what is to stop the police from targeting Maori offenders in the same way by encouraging European people to place white stickers on their cars? What is to stop the police from implementing youth curfews?"

The police also must not be allowed to enforce one law at the expense of violating another law, in this case, the Human Rights Act. It is deeply ironic that two years after the scheme began, the police are now seeking a legal opinion. If everyone had been silent, they would not have bothered to even check its legality. I urge people who are worried about the Under 25 Scheme to speak out against it and join the Yellow Triangle Prevention Project by sending an e-mail to: stop_yellow_triangles@hotmail.com."

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