|
  |
|
|
Nia Glassie case - another mindless knee-jerk reaction
By Bruce Clement
The New Zealand Herald reported Abuse sentences to be reviewed "Justice Minister elect Simon Power says the new National government will consider toughening up sentences on child abusers in its first 100 days. His comments follow guilty verdicts in the case of Nia Glassie, the Rotorua toddler whose three years of life ended in months of torment and her brutal slaying. The facts of the case are that the existing laws were not applied. Neighbors stood by pretending they didn't see the abuse. I don't know if Nia Glassie was seen by medical services before her fatal injury, but if she was they also stood silent. In most of the recent cases of child abuse leading to horrific injuries or death to young children, those who had the power to step in to save the child chose to stand back. There seems to be an on-going tendency for politicians to call for, or promise stiffer sentences, when there is no evidence that there is any real need for them. To the contrary, it seems that the existing law is sufficient, just not applied. Presumably they do this because it gives them the opportunity to be doing something, even if that something is completely futile. We need a change to society's attitude, we need people to come forward and bring these cases to the attention of the authorities and we need the authorities to act. Until that happens, it doesn't matter how severe the penalties are, if the law that is set up to protect children isn't being applied, it doesn't matter how severe the penalty, that law is a waste of space on the statute books and a shame on the people of Aotearoa / New Zealand. Of course, we need our elected representatives to earn their salaries and address the actual problems, not just make empty noises that will not make an iota of difference when it comes to protecting the next Nia Glassie.
|
Contributor's Note
Bruce Clement is a keen social commentator. You are free to copy this article under the http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/3.0/ license as long as you publish it unchanged and link either to Bruce's blog at http://kiore.blogspot.com/ or to his hub site at http://www.clement.co.nz/
|
|
Creative Commons Attribution Required, No Derivatives 3.0
|
PLEASE VISIT THE CONTRIBUTOR'S WEBSITE
Bruce Clement
The Author's personal homepage and hub
www.clement.co.nz
|
|
No reactions yet.
Please login or sign up to rate this intel.
Please login or sign up to add a comment.
The copyright for this content entitled "Nia Glassie case - another mindless knee-jerk reaction" has been specified by the contributor as:
Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 3.0
Details 
This content may be copied and distributed (but not modified), as long as the original author is acknowledged with a link back to the content page.
If you use this content according to the license specified, you must link to the following URL:
http://aotearoa.qondio.com/
|
 |
May, 2012
2008
January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December
2009
January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December
2010
January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December
2011
January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December
2012
January, February, March, April, May
|
|
Not a member yet?
Qondio is a powerful network for making it online. If you have a website to
promote, we can help.
Sign up and get in on the action.
|
|
Welcome to Qondio! Discover the awesome power this network can deliver by going to our About page. Or you could skip straight to the Sign Up form.
|
|
