Kielder.
I'm Chelsea Daniels and this is the Front Page, a daily podcast presented by the New Zealand Herald. The government will introduce legislation later this year to create the Young Serious Offender category and empower youth court judges to send them to new boot camps. It's all while Oranga Tamariki officials supported the view of experts that boot camps are not effective. So why have every other iteration of boot camps in this country failed?
And how might this government make them better?
Today on the Front Page, Herald's senior writer Derek Chang is with us to discuss our tattered history of boot camps and what officials have warned the government about them this time round. First off, Derek, this is a subject we've spoken about before and one we're both really interested in.
Can you remind us of how we got here.
There's a bit of context there, because obviously this is not the first time we've heard about boot camps for young serious offenders. It became quite a political spotlight during all the ram raids, which had a few different contributing factors. One was all the lockdowns increased truancy, kids out of the classroom, another was the cost of living crisis, and we had this massive spike in ram raids and you know, the Labor government at first we were like, well, everything's fine,
everything's fine. Youth offending has been going down, it's been going down. And then when Christopher Luxeman was the opposition leader, he made an announcement that National was going to bring back boot camps for young serious offenders. And I think the context is important there because ram raids were going through the roof. They were on the front page of the papers all the time, they were a big deal.
So obviously as soon as lux And announced these boot camps, everyone jumped on him and saying they don't work, we've tried them before, they failed, sometimes they make it worse. And then he got accused of like you know, slogan ering for the election, but in any case, he campaigned on it and it was part of his pledge card and then when they formed the coalition they went straight into it. So we've been here before. New Zealand has
had boot camps before, they've been run overseas before. The general consensus among academia is that they don't work, and if they do work, it's generally because they have a whole bunch of features in them that aren't really the essential characteristics of boot camps. You know, people think of boot camps and they think army drills and obstacle courses and dual sergeants yelling do drop and give me twenty and there's a whole lot bunch of discipline and tough love.
Really, what's gone wrong with boot camps in the past, Well.
There's been a lot of different studies that officials pointed to in their advice to the Minister for Children Karen Shaw. Generally is also a look at the New Zealand ones as well. Sir Peter Gluckman wrote a paper in twenty eighteen where he just basically said they do not work and the scarce straight tactics can even make things worse.
If you actually look at Sir Peter Glutman's entire comment. He said that they don't work in who he didn't think they'd work well in isolation. We agree with him. That's why we put a twelve month course in place with follow up support for that young person when they come out, to make sure they've got the best possible chance to launch. Because the one thing that we do want to make sure is that they don't. It't the
fifteen to seventeen year olds. They are the ones that most danger of coming into an adult criminal justice system. Once they're in the adult criminal justice system, they're much harder to rehabilitate.
So we've got to talk about who goes to these bird camps, right, And these are the worst of the world defenders, but they're also societies most neglected. They are probably suffering from intergenerational trauma. They might have contemplated suicide, They're likely to be a victim of sexual or physical abuse, and they're probably a neurodivergent in some way or even
have like substances challenges from a young age. So throwing them into a boot camp where someone yells at them, going back to that Supeter Gluckman quote, you know that kind of scare tactic isn't really going to just suddenly change someone's behavior, because their behavior is going to be really complex, lots of different unmet needs and what they need to address the drivers are offending is really complicated.
Yeah, you looked into exactly who will be the cohort being sent to these camps.
Can you tell me a bit about that.
I recall seeing Urana Tamariki briefing in December about the backgrounds of these severe abuse and neglect cases.
That briefing includes just a snapshot, so you know, there are there are I don't know, probably tens of thousands of young people who go through the youth justice system or dealt with by police every year, young people being like children ten to thirteen and young people fourteen to seventeen.
Most of them get diversion from you know, police don't prosecute those who are prosecuted, most of those don't end up in the youth court, and even most of them who do go to the youth court still eventually get
a discharge. There's a big focus on restorative justice. This is the non punitive emphasis that has really led to youth depending dropping since two thousand and seven, right up until two thousand and twenty one twenty two, and that's actually been Studies have shown that has had ongoing repercussions where we're young adults, like convictions for young adults since
two thousand and nine have been decreasing. So what I was trying to say is that of all of those teens of thousands of people who might you know come to the attention of police or the justice system. There's only three hundred and fifty fourteen to seventeen year olds who go to youth court and reoffend within a year. So the people who really on a somebody, he said, we're likely to qualify for this young serious offender designation
as a special category that requires new legislation. There's about one hundred of them who would have committed like two serious crimes. And who are these people? Eighty percent have a confirmed or suspected mental health or disability diagnosis, twenty percent have tried to kill themselves, ninety percent have significant learning difficulties. Half of the boys have been physically harmed three times in the past year, so they are almost neglected.
Overseas. Reports suggest ne're adverse and trauma are problems facing most young offenders.
Being yelled at. That's probably been their environment, sinless they grew up.
Get back down on the press upposition.
At last week's media stand up at the Youth Justice facility hosting the boot camp, there was hope this had been taken into account.
Why are so many people against the idea of boot camps?
What have officials said to this government so far.
I mean, people's main beef is that they don't work, really and that they're really expensive, and why throw a whole bunch of money at something that is not very likely to succeed? And this is kind of exactly what Luxin said about labor on the campaign, right, and not without cause. Why throw money at something that doesn't work? And if you look at our history, we had a bunch of boot camps in the eighties and nineties where
the reconviction rate was ninety two percent. John Key had a bunch that ran from two thousand and ten where the reoffending rate was more than eighty percent. We also have had when they were called outdoor activity camps for those in state care, where people were basically tortured and abused. So we don't have a great history of success. In fact, there's a history of abuse. But people like the idea
it's a tough on crime thing. It's like, well, these guys have committed crimes and we got to have consequences for that. So I guess it's not very surprising when politicians reached for that particular.
Ever, what makes this latest iteration of boot camps different to the others? What has Chris Luxon said about them.
Well, it's interesting because in July he started this. You know, I've never called them boot camps, and it's a media thing, but that's actually not true. He called them boot camps in his campaign speech last year. He his pledge card actually had the word boot camps on it. But the shifting language there is basically, well, we've accepted that the official bias and or the expert advice, and the key to a successful boot camp is basically to make it as un boot camp like as possible. So it means
it doesn't have to be fully residential. It's going to need a lot of support, intensive multi agent agency support, community providers, EWE providers. It's going to have like tailored individual programs because each one of these people are going to have really highly complex needs. They're going to need probably counseling, something to address their trauma. So all of these aspects have been used in some boot camps in
the past, maybe not in New Zealand but overseas. But again, typically it's not what you think of when you hear the word boot camps. So he's that's how he's describing them. It's a military style Academy, and Karen Shaw even said in July when she announced the pilot that will inform the eventual ones that will be based on new legislation, she said, well, it's it's not really about punishment. It's about giving these guys as much support as possible and that they've never had in their life.
We've looked overseas and we've looked at what we've already done in New Zealand. So there was a MAC program and there was also the LSP which continues now, but it's more of a voluntary program for people who have put themselves forward for that. There is a lot of evidence that says while they're on these programs that it shows some positive results. It allows these young people to have stability, It allows these young people to have certainty about what's going to happen on a day to day basis.
But what we haven't done well in the past is actually instead of sending them back to the same environment that they came from and just saying you're on your way, where we've done a bit, and step in and wrap around them once they leave the program, you haven't done that well.
And it's interesting, I think with this iteration as well.
They've touted it as being similar to one that the NZDF run, which has been quite successful, but.
That's been voluntary and I know.
In August news Talk z BS, Demelza Jackson reported the government's newly launched military style academies will have actually no military personnel working at the coal face with the young offenders. The Minister of a Children, Karen Shaw, said that they won't be any New Zealand Defense for staff working directly with the young people on the pilots. So there's a bit of mismanagement in I guess how these are.
Actually going to work and what they're going to look like.
Right, well, that's part of the sales pitch, I guess once they became government, or even on the campaign trail the national people Mark Mitchell, including the police spokesman at the time and the Police Minister. Now he talked about the LSV program that they have force ran, but again, as you say, it was very different. It was voluntary.
I think it was six weeks and when Demilsa ran that story, they were very much like no, no, no no. The Defense Force has been highly involved in the design of what we are going to do and that might be true, but the Cabinet paper basically says it's an online at somebody he run show with lots of input from the Minstry of Justice and lots of other agencies as well. But the Defense Force certainly isn't very prominent in those documents, and r is the ALI Speed Program.
So all of this comes under the Young Serious Offender category. So that's how they're getting it through Parliament, right, can you explain what this is?
So they're basically saying, well, these guys, the current system doesn't really cater for them, so we have to create something entirely new, a completely new regime, and to do that, we're going to call it Young Serious Offender Category. Which official was actually said was that they tried to get them to shange the name because equivalent systems in Australia, the YSO label became a bit of a badge of honor. Anyway, they stuck with the YSO thing, and there's various ways
you can be eligible. It's from fourteen to seventeen year olds likely to reoffend have had previous interventions that have not succeeded, and the main thing is that they have to have had to proven offenses. Punishable by ten years jail at least, and that will capture ram rays as well. Interestingly, officials and ministers. Ministers actually agreed with officials to have those offenses and the youth court only, but then they later decided to add any such offenses in the adult
courts to strict and High court. Officials didn't want that because if you go through the youth court, then basically whatever comes out of the youth court takes account of your age. So if you have two offenses in the district court, which you know, if they're serious enough, you have to go to the district court and you get designated young serious offender, then you might not have had
the kind of interventions that are age appropriate. And by including the adult courts it actually broadens the modeling the estimated number who will qualify. So when the legislation goes through and the policy is fully implemented, the estimated number jumps from sixty to one hundred and two every year, and that actually the estimated cost of that is sixteen and a half million dollars more than was allocated in
budget twenty twenty four. However, you know there's a lot of uncertainty there it's who gets a YSO designation will be up to the Youth Court judge, so there's a lot of discretion there. It's still and Ministerture basically said, well, we'll be monitoring it, with the implication being that if we need to put more money into it than we can.
So if you get a YSO declaration, that doesn't necessarily mean you go to a boot camp, but it enables the Youth Court judge to hand down a tougher sentence, like a supervision order that's longer than any that they can currently give out, one of which would be to send them to a boot camp up to a year. There's a whole bunch of judicial monitoring to ensure compliance with your conditions like having to go to a drug
program for example. And there's much wider use of electronic monitoring, which is quite controversial as well because currently it's hardly used it all. It can be used, but it's barely used at all, and under the new legislation or the new regime rather it can apply for odd months and that raises a whole bunch of tensions with the Bill
of Rights Act protection against unreasonable search and seizure. But we don't have a bill yet that would implement this regime, so we don't have a borer vetting of the spell, and we don't know whether any of these limits on rights are unjustified.
So Derek, what happens from here?
When are we likely to see these boot camps actually up and running, And have we got any idea about actually where they'll be, what facilities will be used.
No, that's a big open question at the moment. There's currently the pilot obviously that's going on, and that will inform the boot camp. The current pilot which is in a youth justice residency their PARTMPS North. I think that's under the current legislative setting. So they're going to be The actual boot camps are going to be quite different to those ones. And the pilot is a three month in residence and then nine months in community with lots
of rap around support. So I guess the principles of it, they say, I mean, this is kind of like this is what Odong Tamicky officials wanted the government to do
in the first place. They said, well, you can give you can provide all these bricks, best practice components that are evidence based without having a boot camp at all, And the current boot camp pilot is at a Youth Justice residence, so it's not a fully residential place, it's not a secure setting, and they're basically they're basically the trial is what the officials wanted the government to do
in the first place. So that still has about nine and a half months to run, so there will be a question about where these boot camps will be, how
many there might be. And the timeline is completely as well because the government still has to introduce a bill that will enable this regime to be implemented, which will go through a whole SOLI committee process, and once that bill has passed, I guess around that time that the pilot will finish and then a youth Court judge will be able to designate someone a Yso what.
If official has actually warned the government about regarding these new police powers.
The main warning there is that Cabinet signed off a bunch of warrantless powers of detention and arrest for the police. So usually the police will go to the youth court to get a warrant and that gives a bunch of judicial oversight, some safeguards. But while you're waiting for a warrant. Say, you know, if one of these guys has escaped a boot camp or something, or has you know, reached a supervision order in some way, then maybe there's a public
safety risk. So the government's basically decided that the ability of police to have an immediate response and detain or arrest one of the way ss without a warrant is more important. Officials oppose this because they said there might be a really a mining bridge, it could be a completely unintentional breach, or the police might have been mistaken, or they might have been and they might just be
misusing their powers. There was a quote from the official documents where it basically says racial profiling and bias and arrests and the youth justice system may become more significant under these conditions. So it's a trade off. You allow police to have an immediate response, but that comes at
the expense of a lack of oversight. And this is one of the things that officials said about potential tensions with the Bill of Rights Act, which has protections from arbitrary arrest and detention, for example, and also for the rights of young people to be dealt with in an age appropriate way.
Thanks for joining US daring.
That's it for this episode of the Front Page. You can read more about today's stories and extensive news coverage at Enzeed Herald dot co dot nz. The Front Page is produced by Ethan Siles with sound engineer Patty Fox. I'm Chelsea Daniels. Subscribe to the Front Page on iHeartRadio or wherever you get your podcasts, and tune in tomorrow for another look behind the headlines.