My research for this blog attempted to answer the following questions:
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1. What obstacles do we have to overcome to solve the problem of youth crime in Alice Springs?
2. In the light of neuroscience and neurolaw, are our beliefs in free will and a centralised self still useful?
3. Should libertarian views play a role in criminal justice?
4. How can we apply the Charter of Sustainable Justice to Alice Springs?
5. Why do Scandinavian countries and Spain do much better in reducing crime?
6. When we look at our criminal justice system, can we call ourselves "civilised"?
7. What are the roads to a sustainable solution open to us?
8. What are our unifying stories?
.The short answers to these questions are:
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1. See the 31 obstacles identified described later
2. Deterministic free-will-skepticism is the only respectable framework to work from
3. Libertarian views are outdated and not congruent with scientific findings
4. See chapter: The Charter revisited
5. Humane ‘nosirps’, public health approach, normality principle, the principle of least
infringement, the lychee model.
6. The justice system should be clear about the origins of human behaviour
7. See blog: Community ideas
8. Trauma, sports and the arts
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Scope
The scope of this blog concerns offenders aged 10 to 26 who are processed through the justice system, from arrest to release. Although I acknowledge that prevention and after-care are as important, if not more important, they are not part of this blog. This blog aims to improve the offender's journey from the police office, through the courtroom and prison – for the sake of the safety of the community, the victims, and the offenders. It advocates for swift and thorough trauma-focused public health approaches. The ages 10 to 26 were chosen because ten is the age of criminal responsibility (at the time of this writing), and 26 is the age when the brain is assumed to be mature, by neuroscientists and the UN alike. Some academics consider the age of maturity to be even higher.
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Perspective
.The perspective of this blog is one of deterministic freewill-skepticism and, in the broader sense, of naturalism. The author believes that such methods are more reliable and more objective than those based on feeling, intuition, revelation, religious authority, or sacred texts. When one does not believe in anything supernatural such as gods, ghosts, immaterial souls, and spirits, one subscribes to naturalism, which is the idea that nature is all there is.
Then empirical, evidence-based science is the way to observe such a reality.
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Methods
I used a mixed approach of methods for my research. Mixed methods research combines qualitative and quantitative analysis. The result is a more holistic approach combining and analysing statistical data with deeper contextualised insights.
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