Constable Teina Reflection

Today Constable Teina came into our classroom and taught us about laws and our community. This is what we learnt.

In school we have rules and if we break them to many times we could get expelled, but in the big world we call the rules laws. Laws are made by the government and if you break them you get a penalty. A penalty is like a consequence that you get when you break the law. For example if you rob a house and take something that costs over $1000 you get up to 7 years in prison. Burglary- By the way did you know that burglary is different to robbery, if you didn't you do now. Robbery is where you have a weapon or an extra person helping you to steal the things. It is also when you use another person to help you threaten someone. But Burglary is something different. Burglary is when you break in, when you just pull the door handle and walk in without the owner's permission. Well if you help someone steal from a house (even if it is driving the car) you are helping him steal and you get the same years in jail as him. I think if you are accused of burglary you get up to 10 years here in NZ but in the states you could spend life (life here in nz is 18 years). Sometimes it's just one year. Did you know you can get a fine for just pushing someone over?? Another thing she taught us about was our community. Did you know you can get a fine (I think it was go to jail as well?) if you tag? When you tag and litter in our community other people will come and be like this community is trash and that's how i'm gonna treat it. It's always good to keep our community clean and to do that you need to pick up rubbish you see, don't litter, and don't tag. If you stab someone on accident or purpose you can spend up to 3 1/2 years in jail. What I was really shocked to hear was that there are 5 types of abuse in New Zealand. Domestic, sexual, emotional, physical and neglect. Another thing she explained in the lesson was that if you walk into a shop with a friend and their stealing and you aren't you spend 3 1/2 years in jail. This is called party to the crime. The actual person that stole it spends 7 years in jail and the 3 1/2 years is half of the years. Did you know that Murder is when you kill someone on purpose and manslaughter is when you didn't mean to do it. We learnt many more and you can find out here on Rm7's blog. I enjoyed having this lesson with Constable Teina!