Minister 'completely disagrees' with boot camp critics

The government is adamant boot camps for youth offenders are the answer despite the amount of criticism being thrown at them.

Opponents say boot camps are expensive and don't work but the Children's Minister Karen Chhour has announced they will begin operating by the middle of the year.

Chhour, a former state ward herself, told Midday Report there needed to be another tool in showing young people there were consequences for their actions but they could benefit from a chance to turn their lives around.

"I understand there can't just be a one-size-fits-all. We do have to work with multiple organisations and ministries to make sure we're stepping up in each area that young person needs help in."

She said a previous programme run between 2010-2016 (a partnership between Child, Youth and Family and the NZ Defence Force) achieved some short-term successes.

The young people had started to address their offending and take responsibility for it but it all "came unstuck" when they returned to their usual circle of friends.

"So we're concentrating on that also, we can't just put this programme together, put them through the programme and then leave them on their own afterwards."

They would need the "correct follow-up" including with their families "to make sure it's a positive transition", Chhour said.

She was targeting the programme at serious youth offenders.

"We have to try something and try something new. We can't just give up on these young people."

Police Minister Mark Mitchell told Morning Report he completely disagreed with those who said the young offender military academies won't work.

He said "dozens" of young people - the most serious offenders of violent retail crime - would be sent to the Oranga Tamariki-run programme.

"They're a danger to the community and they're a danger to themselves.

"If we don't invest in them, they'll end up in the adult system."

Mitchell said the type of young people he was talking about usually came from dysfunctional or broken homes and often had gang ties.

"We don't want to give up on these young people.

"It's a big intervention in their lives and I think it's one that's going to be extremely positive because the reality is whatever is happening to them back in their homes is not working."

Asked about push back from those working with young offenders, Mitchell said the academy was only targeting the most serious young offenders.

"The youth workers are often dealing with those youth offenders that might come out and have done a bit of offending and you can get some quick support around them and you can actually make a positive intervention, we're not talking about those youth offenders."

'It's not going to be successful'

Aaron Hendry - a youth advocate and director of youth organisation Kick Back - said he was extremely concerned as boot camps were not the best way to deal with young offenders.

"We know it is not going to be largely successful and looking at research overseas and here as well they haven't been successful. Not long term."

Hendry said the military component can cause more harm for young people who were already not in a good space.

"The young people we are talking about have already come through trauma - disability and illness, poverty and homelessness."

He said taking them out of their communities did not address the root causes about why they caused the harm originally.

"To start with we need to look at preventing what is going on. We need to respond and provide their basic needs. We also need to look at the group of young people who are causing harm right now and may need to be maybe be removed from the community.

He has called for much smaller localised home based support systems that were focused on therapeutic responses, rather than militant ones.

"A lot of these young people are victims first. This doesn't make our community safer. They will come out the other side and more harm will occur."

Former attendee supports decision

A man who attended a boot camp for three months in the early eighties says the programme worked for him, but won't work for everyone.

Wayne* attended what was called 'corrective training' at Rangipo Farm when he was 17, after he was caught robbing a taxi driver, and never offended again.

He said he thrived at the training and went into it with a positive attitude and soon realised what he had done was "stupid".

"I didn't have a long history of criminal activity, and it reinforced for me that it wrong thing to do and I didn't want to go back to correctional facility."

Wayne said he had a job to go back to, and he didn't come from a troubled background unlike some of the others.

For other youths with more complex backgrounds, it could have the opposite effect, he said.

"I would suggest there were people in there that, no matter what you did to them or with them, it would have no impact and would actually exacerbate their hostility towards authority."

The authorities would need to be "very selective" about who they sent to boot camp, he said.

"People need to have some sort of career or job or focus to break that cycle.

"If you go into a facility like that and you come out and go back to your old ways or your old friends, you're more than likely going to continue back in your old behaviours."

Bootcamps would be another tool for the justice system to use, but it could not be the only solution, he said.

*RNZ has agreed not to reveal Wayne's identity.