I spent this morning in the Social Services Select Committee catching up on a few bills that are due back in the House.
Some of you will remember that the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families (Youth Courts Jurisdiction and Orders) Bill, which has widely been referred to as the boot camp bill, was sent to the Select Committee in February this year.
It’s still there.
Originally it was due to be reported back in August, but the Minister subsequently asked that the Select Committee extend it’s consideration by an additional few months. I was disappointed to then see the Minister announce that she was going to kick of a trial of Fresh Start, the Government’s new youth justice programme, before the Select Committee had shared its views and the views of the public.
This has been a controversial piece of legislation and it’s important we get it right.
The Bill is due to go back before parliament by the end of this month. I’ll do another post then on the findings of the select committee, and views on some of the other substantive provisions.
Will this just make young criminals faster and more able to outrun police?
Don’t know if this will work. I know PD they tend to just met more crims and learn off them. Wouldn’t this be kind of the same? I don’t know. Must admit I haven’t really looked into studies on this. Has it worked overseas?
I don’t think it’s the right way to go.
Young troubled youth will not be able to just learn off one another (not all will be criminals). Unlike PD the participants are not left to their own devices for long periods of time. They are engaged in physically demanding training as well as given excellent training in personal management and self discipline. All things that can help these kind of young at risk people.
As to running a trial, wouldn’t this provide some valuable information for the select committee to work with. The actual effect and success of course would not be able to be judged off a single course it would however allow for the logistical side of the proposal to be tested. i.e are our defense forces going to be able to actually deliver the proposed courses on time and within the budgets
Also Spud is there a reason you don’t think this is the way to go? Have you any experience or carried out any research into the effectiveness of these courses?
Geek, hint, labour good, national bad. no other reason required.
geek
as I said I don’t know much about it and I think the points you made are good ones. I don’t feel I can really comment on this until I know more.
Seems to be a useful idea. Labour needs to support good ideas, not be negative all the time.
@geek and sweetd – I’m here as Joe Public, I do have my reasons but on this occasion I don’t want to share them. “Labour good National bad” I like how you think sweetd
Hey, if Labour suggested something I hated then I would be criticising the idea. I wouldn’t like the bootcamp idea no matter which party brought it up.
Can explain what is useful about kicking off “a trial of Fresh Start, the Government’s new youth justice programme, before the Select Committee had shared its views and the views of the public”. The post doesn’t actually bash the idea of boot camps so much as question whether it has been thought through properly. It’s a valid question – so much of what National has rammed through hasn’t been considered properly.
Except it isn’t a good idea David. The outcomes of Boot Camp policies are poor.
Look at Judge Andrew Becroft’s statements, published in the ‘Dominion post’ 27 February 2009, pA1.
“The traditional “boot camp” for young offenders was “arguably the least successful sentence in the Western world”, the principal Youth Court judge says.
“It made them healthier, fitter, faster, but they were still burglars, just harder to catch, ” Judge Andrew Becroft said.
He said physical programmes backed up by mentoring and family support could work, but New Zealand’s corrective training camps, which ran up till 2002, found 92 per cent of young attendees reoffended within a year.
“It was a spectacular, tragic, flawed, failure,” he said.”
You can read the whole article here http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/1759353
But the Judge’s view is, Boot Camp has been tried, it was expensive, it didn’t work.
Why is the government looking at doing this again? Is it because being harsh on criminals is an easy vote getter? I’d prefer a government to find an approach that would lower crime.
I was never a bad boy, well, and I just missed out on an Outward Bound Course when I was at the Railways .. gutted me but there was only 1 spot, I was 2nd.
There may have been, never heard 1 myself, criticism of this course. Wouldn’t it be great if we could afford to send all our “difficult’ kids to something like this?. I don’t think the term Boot Camp is helpful.
Sure Jabba, it could be a nice trip, or it could be enforced square bashing for teenages as a non commissioned officer shouts at them, I don’t know how they are structuring this.
But it is not supposed to be a nice trip: this scheme is supposed to stop young people being criminals, to stop them re-offending. Last time it was tried it didn’t work.
Why not take the money to be invested in this, and look for a different way, a successful way, to stop young people re-offending?
I would not claim to know more than any judge about its success or failure rate. if the numbers are true than it would probably not be a worthwhile effort. A 92% recidivism rate is very high. What are the numbers for other forms of rehabilitation? A comparison would be helpful to put it into context.
My own personal experience is with the 8% don’t re offend. My brother went on LSV’s when he was young and it changed his whole world around. It was one of the precipitating factors in me choosing to turn my own life around by joining the military.
When it comes down to it I personally think that it is attacking the issue from the wrong end. You want to reduce or prevent youth crime? improve living standards for those in lower income homes. Ensure everyone gets a good quality education and has good prospects for reasonable paid employment. There will always be a criminal element. Those who want to offend no matter what. They however are a minority of those who actually do.
@geek. The LSV programme is about to be hugely expanded
I know. I have been seeing the requests go around for personnel to take up positions in training and administering it. I am not egotistical enough to base the possible success upon my own personal experience so would not be willing to comment on how much the scheme could achieve.