The Chief Children’s Commissioner says she still has concerns about a wider rollout — but her first visit to the Government’s piloted “military-style” youth offender boot camp yielded several positive first impressions.
The boot camps, officially known as young offender military academies, have been piloted at an Oranga Tamariki facility in Palmerston North since the end of July.
Ten teens have been involved, aged between 15 and 17 at the time of their offending.
Speaking to Q+A, Claire Achmad said she had visited the facility and had a “snapshot” of how the pilot was being run.
She said: “I’ve been to the military-style academy pilot — I spent an afternoon there and so I’ve got a bit of a snapshot as to, you know, what was happening there.
“To be honest, while I was there, I didn’t see anything that I would class as military-style in character and so that was positive.”
Youth development worker AJ Hendry said the children who would fit under the new category have been abused, harmed, are often living in poverty and some have experienced homelessness.
(Source: Breakfast)
“What I did see was a multi-disciplinary team working on a one-to-one basis with those rangatahi — focusing on their trauma and wrapping therapeutic and rehabilitative approaches around them. Also, I understand there’s been some outreach with whānau.
“But that’s not to say that I don’t still have concerns around how we’re going to see this young serious offender and military-style academy programme roll out from here.”
The Chief Children’s Commissioner told Q+A she was conscious that survivors of abuse in state care had reiterated to her to not “let us go down this path again”.
She said her agency, the Children and Young People’s Commission, had the further ability to make “unannounced” visits to youth justice facilities, including the boot camp pilot.
The Government has promoted the programme as a way to help serious youth offenders as a “powerful, targeted intervention” to help “turn their lives around”.
Commissioner’s earlier concerns about ‘military-style’
The military-style academies were part of the National’s law and order policy at last year’s election, pledged as a way to help “crack down on serious repeat youth offenders”.
Achmad had previously been critical of the touted “military-style” aspect of the programme, which National had initially pledged would involve Defence Force (NZDF) personnel.
“We can have that intellectual conversation all day long, but we are, dammit, going to try something different.” he said. (Source: 1News)
In June, she told Breakfast: “I am concerned about anything that is military style when it comes to our children. That’s not a children’s rights approach, and so I am simply questioning whether we need that military-style component as part of this programme.
“We actually know positive alternatives that do all that wrap-around support that the minister is talking about, they already exist.”
There were no NZDF military personnel working on the frontline with youth offenders during the Palmerston North trial, the NZ Herald reported in August.
NZDF leaders also warned the Government they did not want the armed forces to take a major role in running the boot camps as late as May, according to Stuff.
