Leading youth judge

The Principal Youth Court Judge (i.e. the man who presumedly knows the most about youth crime in the whole country) says boot camps are "arguably the least successful sentence in the Western world"

92 per cent of young attendees reoffended within a year.
"It was a spectacular, tragic, flawed, failure,"
http://www.stuff.co.nz/4861598a11.html


And those tragic, spectacular failures are the leading (only?) policy our new Government has on youth crime. Ace.

(Terrible title, sorry! Kinda only got half way through :lol

yet to see one expert suggest these camps are beneficial to any one except those running the courses

$35 mill a year to make our potential reoffenders fitter - awesome!

If theyre taking the worst youth offenders i hardly think youre going to get any dramatic results but thats not to say along with other things it might have a beneficial effect.

I wonder what the recidivism rates of other measures on the worst youth offenders have been.

I think its too late if youre taking the 'worst' and youre better off working on the fringe where some positive reinforcement might actually tip the balance... but then we arent allowed to work on those ones as its against their rights eh?

For a start I doubt the ones which were tried were done well - given our history of doing things half-arsed at best.... That aside, a youth court judge is possibly clouded as hell in his objectivity as to what works as rehabilitation (esp since judges rarely have any part in it). Having met numerous judges in my life socially one thing that strikes me as being common is their view on life seems to be based on 'in an ideal world we'd...' instead of looking at the practical application of it.. (esp since it's not their job). I'm not paying judges out per se but they're not the experts in behavioural matters - they just repeatedly see the worst of the worst so probably have a slightly skewed view on it.

The boot-camp is dependent on how well it's done I imagine - that seems like a no-brainer to me. I'd rather they try something than the current tone of discussion which basically goes: that has been proven to only by 5% effective... so don't do it BUT rarely ever suggesting anything productive as an alternative. In fact I'm yet to see any good alternatives offered by any of the nay-sayers of this sort of thing or the 3 strikes idea.

(The 3-strikes idea for example has been proven in L.A. to be a massive, overwhelming success in reducing serious crime - except for those who are career criminals)

Agree. As Vads will tell you, there is a small percentage of people who really are beyond help. The hard task is, how do you address this/them?

A carrot and a big stick (3 strikes for serious crimes).

Im all for more rehab but sooner in the course of a crimnals life rather than once they are the worst.

Hell - get the kids that get caught bullying and send them on meaningful courses, tr some things see what works for which kind of kids and refine it from that.

I guess what im saying is be proactive rather than solely reactive.

Boot Camp?


make the little crims break rocks for 15 hours a day.

Has there been any investigation into why they don't work? My understanding is these camps don't just make them fit, they teach them respect for other people (most importantly respect for rules and authority), and bunch of other basic social skills. At least that's the intention.

It's quite frustrating when people shoot down a potential solution to a problem - and suggest no alternative.

Which is the norm in crime discussions in NZ and why so many people are frustrated about the issue.

I think the experts have stated that its not a solution, potential or otherwise - there was some mention in the media of addressing some of the causes of crime - but that falls outside of the get tough line actively promoted

whenever someone suggests anything other than tougher laws its either ignored or simply called PC crap

Some experts have, some havent. Expecting it to turn around the worst is setting it up to fail however.

will such camps be beneficial/useful for the participants? absolutely

will the camps make any real quantitative difference to crime stats/offending rates? almost certainly not

is what I would say

still, we do plenty of things already in sentencing that make no difference to re-offending rates eg anger management courses

but nobody would argue that they are of no value at all

JH could the 35 million (or whatever the actual figure is) be ebtter spent on exisiting schemes or some other means to help reduce crime?

How many Police would this money put on the streets (preferably cadets that don't cheat on their entry tests)

is this prudent expenditure by our govt in these tough times, or simply pandering to the masses baying for tougher sentences and the like?

35 million is a ridiculous amount to spend when it could be invested in other aspects of the justice system eg improving court security which at the moment is a fucking joke

in fact many aspects are a fucking joke

it's a miracle the whole edifice carries on at all

just the other day, a guy on bail escaped the High Court and not one police or security officer was there to stop him

he was last seen at Sky City casino

still on the run

I think he was apprehended jh

give 'em kfc

I thought so too

so why did they have his face on Police 10-7 last night as "wanted"?

escaped police custody maybe?

he might have been the same one who absconded from his lawyer's office?

Agreed. They make absolutely no sense

The NZDF is ALREADY over stretched. Now you're going to force them to train the sort of little shits that will require experienced NCOs to keep in line?

Which is why bail should be the exception, not the rule

Judges crying about poor security only have themselves to blame... if they imposed longer sentences then obviously there would be fewer cases as the frequency of crime would drop

That would kind of be the height of your "toss out this innocence before proven otherwise crap" approach I suppose...


Unless the act of longterm incarceration increases the likelihood of an individual reoffending once free (makes them career criminals, reduces their respect-for/sense-of-inclusion-in society, puts a whole bunch of criminally-minded individuals together etc )- so overall they commit the same number of crimes because they offend more quickly once released. At which point we get the same rate of crime, with more people in prison at much greater cost. Not really a win.

Except it doesn't!

Look at criminal youths. Almost NONE of them have been to jail, yet almost all of them are career criminals.

Jail doesn't make people career criminals. A lack of respect for the law does. And you sure as fuck don't instil respect through being nice. Machiavelli understood that.

Nope. It's about community safety.

Nobody is implying they committed crime X. However, for the safety of the community, they need to be locked away; whatever time they spend in custody can be taken away from their final sentence if found guilty, and if found not guilty, I'd have no problem with recompense.

We can lock people away if they're seen as a threat - you try waving a gun away and see if you're not detained - and someone who is suspected of an aggravated robbery or demanding with menaces IS a threat.

I honestly don't think you have any idea how dangerous some areas of Auckland have become. The police do everything they can, but the justice system can't backl them up.