Counties Discuss Work For Vandals

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29766, 8 March 1962, Page 14

Counties Discuss Work For Vandals

Magistrates should have the power to order persons convicted of vandalism in parks and reserves to do some creative work in a park or reserve as a penalty, Mr J I. Colligan, Waimairi County chairman, told the annual meeting of Ward 11 of the New Zealand Counties’ Association, yesterday. “My council is concerned about the amount of vandalism in the county," said Mr Colligan, “and we feel it is a matter of educating teenagers. If they could be ordered to work in a reserve under the direction of the local authority, then they may learn to create something rather than destroy things.

"The Minister of Justice (Mr Hanan) has expressed his concern about vandalism, and I believe he is a man who is willing to try something new.” Mr Colligan was supported by Mr R. A. Young, Heathcote County’s chairman. “I think a Magistrate could be given the power to put a person on probation on the ’ terms that he work under the supervision of the council on a Saturday," said Mr Young. Mr A. J. Blakely, Kowai County’s chairman, opposed the proposal on the ground that it contained the suggestion that councils would be running "our own little borstals.

“Who’s going to supervise them?” he asked. “Someone would have to be paid to do it, and altogether it would have an upsetting influence on the staff and it would be bad for morale. “The best scheme would be to form them into a gang with a sergeant-major in charge and put them out grubbing nassella tussock.” Mr A. A. Macfarlane, the Amuri County chairman, said he agreed that it looked as thought the ward was trying to start a new penal code. “We might end up with special penalties for at! offences,” he said. “We might have to sweep the streets for parking offences. And the Nassella Tussock Board doesn’t necessarily want those people grubbing their tussock.” Mr W. C. Miller. Wairewa County chairman, suggested the ward could press for more severe penalties, rather than a special penalty for vandalism. "There are some very paltry penalties today,” he said.

Mr Colligan said he realised that there were a lot of difficulties to his proposal. “But these are creative people who work on our reserves,” he said. "They work the whole week cleaning up the parks and reserves and planting young trees, only to come back after the week-end and find the little trees broken in half.

“They would like to have these fellows for half a day.” be said. “They could teach them how to create something.”

Mr Young said he was very concerned to find opposition to the proposal. “I wonder if the opposers have parks in their counties and are as concerned as we are about them. This treatment would not be borstal—it would be the very opposite. The vandals are usually not delinquents. but high-spirited young people. We want them to have some regard for these things that are held for the benefit of all people in the county and adjoining areas. "I see this scheme as a sort of fatigue where they could be seen publicly doing some sort of penance for what thev have violated. We have a duty to the ratepayers to see that their parks and property are protected.”

Mr C. N. Mackenzie, the ward chairman, said he thought the scheme had a lot of merit, and the meeting agreed to send a remit to its associations annual conference urging that the law be amended in that way.