Ryan Bridge: If you're not responsible or capable of saying no to a gang life, how can you be punished for it?

Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

Interesting op-ed from The Conversation by Chris Gledhill, Professor of Law at Auckland University of Technology.

It's about the Government's new gang legislation and argues that the changes that are being made in some last-minute ones could impinge on the Bill of Rights, and it makes some good points.

It says people join gangs for various reasons for some it's a matter of family connections, for others gang membership may arise from being marginalised from society.

The Royal Commission on Abuse and Care highlighted that abuse was also a pathway into gang membership, and in 2018 a report highlighted that imprisonment feeds gang recruitment. So, you don't have a choice?

If you are poor, if you have family in a gang, if you went to jail and they recruited you in jail, that's on society, not on you. You don't have a choice in the matter?

It's a crucial part of the puzzle because it sets up the entire system of response to dealing with the problem.

If you're not responsible or capable of saying no to a gang life, how can you be punished for that association?

Is the expectation that if you join a gang, and you've been raised in a household that is associated with a gang, that you are impoverished, that you don't know what is right and what is wrong?

And if so, how can you be punished?

I interviewed a guy called Puck out of Hawke's Bay, he was with the Mongrel Mob. This was years ago, and he was done for a homicide and spent time in prison, but then turned his life around and had a positive role model.

I sat down with him for a good couple of hours, had a good chat. He knew what he had done was wrong and was remorseful and really sorry and wanted to apologise to the people that he had hurt.

I found out about a year later he was back in jail. He had turned his life around, and the then Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern had used him as an example of somebody who could turn their life around with a positive role model.

He then did some horrendous domestic violence stuff, dealing meth in prison. I mean, you name it.

So there's a guy who I know, who knows what he did was wrong, and he had bad influences growing up all of that stuff.

But he knows what he did was wrong and did it anyway.

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