Debate contribution: Justice Bill: Consideration Stage

Debate contribution by Mrs Naomi Long on 15 June 2026.

MLA: Mrs Naomi Long
Party at the time: Alliance Party
Date: 15 June 2026
Type: Debate contribution (made as a minister)
Business: Executive Committee Business
Heading: Justice Bill: Consideration Stage
Assembly identifier: Official Report component 5614467

Text

I appreciate the Member's giving way again. On that issue, one of the challenges that we and the PSNI face is that a child of 11, 12 or 13 may not see themselves as being a victim of grooming, but they may, in fact, be a victim of grooming. That is one of the reasons that, when we look at issues such as modern slavery and child criminal exploitation, our number of referrals to, for example, the national referral mechanism (NRM) is lower for young people from our own community than it is for those who have been trafficked into Northern Ireland from elsewhere, because we are poor at distinguishing between those who are victims of coercion in their activities as young people and young people who are willingly participating in crime off their own back. By removing them from the criminal justice system, they are more likely to be referred to the NRM and get the kind of support that they need.

163 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

Not flagged

Jev’s structured answers met the documented threshold for “not flagged”.

Overall probability that the activity is being used to promote, exploit or escalate an identity-based controversy: 0.06 (flagging needs at least 0.70; at or below 0.30 is not flagged).
None of the five culture-war criteria was met (each was below 0.60).
Assessed as legitimate policy scrutiny (0.91).
No identity-based framing was identified (1.00).
Subject area: Sexism, misogyny, ageism and other equality groups.
The overall probability was at or below the not-flagging threshold.

This is an AI-generated assessment of the text, made against published criteria. It is not a finding of fact about the MLA or their intentions. The Assembly record itself is the fact.

Jev’s structured answers

Probability that each statement is true of this text (0 = no, 1 = yes). A criterion counts as met at 0.60 or above.
Question	Probability	Met?
Identity framing	0.07	No
Sectarian or communal antagonism	0.05	No
Cultural grievance politics	0.02	No
Dog-whistle messaging	0.08	No
Controversy escalation	0.04	No
Legitimate policy scrutiny	0.91	Yes
Overall judgement	0.06	At or below not-flagging threshold

Context and attribution (stance)
Option	Probability
No identity-based framing (chosen)	1.00
Reports or questions it	0.00
Criticises or condemns it	0.00
Adopts it	0.00

Subject area (top five)
Subject	Probability
Sexism, misogyny, ageism and other equality groups	0.43
Immigration, asylum, race, ethnicity and Travellers	0.35
Gender, sexuality, abortion and related social issues	0.12
No identity-related subject	0.08
Sectarianism, hate crime and community relations	0.01

Assessed 21 October 2026 at 15:53 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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