Sam Troth

I would have answered yes straight away, but you know, it was never asked.

So I

acted out more, my behavior became more extreme as a cry for help, wanting someone to ask.

Um, so I did basically from 14 to 16 was in and out of family homes and, um, did two months in Ipuni and did 11 months in, um, in YouthLink, um, up in Auckland.

And then, um, did corrective training.

So Rangipo prison at 16 and you do the pruning the pine trees and PT in the morning and 12K run on the weekend and all that sort of stuff.

Did a sentence of that.

And then, um,

At 17, got sentenced to three years in prison for car theft, of all things, which is, again, another frustrating thing when I'm advocating now for sexual violence and stronger sentencing and stuff, and I see people that are getting seven months home detention for sexual violation of a child.

And I got three years in prison.

And as a kid, myself, for stealing cars, it's a huge injustice.

But I went to prison six times.

And next year, in December, it'll be 20 years that I haven't been back to prison or broken the law.

um yeah i wish that asked you know um when i look back i just got all my photos my police and my corrections photos and i'm looking at the rest photos from when i was 14 years old and i'm just thinking

Why did nobody ask?

Not well.

Yeah.

They were preoccupied, I guess, you know, later on now after speaking with my dad and getting some closure and some clarity.

You know, they had a lot of stuff going on themselves that we didn't know.

And they did really well at keeping adult stuff between them and letting us kids know what we needed to know.