Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der is stand­ing by his po­si­tion that cer­tain young of­fend­ers should be tried as adults, ar­gu­ing that their ac­tions and in­tent in com­mit­ting se­ri­ous crimes re­flect adult-lev­el de­ci­sion-mak­ing.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Alexan­der said his pro­pos­al is not about pun­ish­ing chil­dren harsh­ly, but about en­sur­ing ac­count­abil­i­ty in light of the grow­ing num­ber of of­fences be­ing com­mit­ted by mi­nors.

“If I was to bring a law that speaks to young per­sons be­cause of their ac­tions and their in­ten­tions, to be deemed an adult, ob­vi­ous­ly I wouldn’t place them among the hard­line crim­i­nal pop­u­la­tion,” he ex­plained. “But I would keep them at a par­tic­u­lar lo­ca­tion and still try them as adults.”