The PM and Kiri Allen were taking a harder line on youth crime in July, but today Kelvin Davis extends a soft approach
The hard cops had their go back in July, when the PM and his Justice Minister (before her fall from grace) announced the Government will introduce a new offence specifically targeting ram raids and changes to allow 12- and 13-year-olds to be charged in the Youth Court.
That was the third in a package of law and order policies specifically targeting youth offending unveiled in the same week.
Today, the soft cop is back on the law-and-order beat.
Children’s Minister Kelvin Davis has announced the extension of the ‘Circuit Breaker’ fast track programme in two new locations.
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3 OCTOBER 2023
The successful ‘Circuit Breaker’ fast track programme designed to stop repeat youth offending was launched in two new locations today by Children’s Minister Kelvin Davis.
Expanding on his describing Circuit Breaker as successful, Davis enthused:
“We have seen fantastic results from the fast track programme where it has been rolled out and the key is agencies such as Police and Oranga Tamariki working in collaboration with the community.”
But whoa: the press statement reminds us the programme was first piloted in West and South Auckland in December last year.
Aimed at children aged 10-13 who commit serious offending or continue to reoffend at a high rate “and need a more intensive, wrap-around approach”, it is under way in Auckland Central, Hamilton, and Christchurch and will now be offered in Whangārei and Rotorua.
Work is under way to assess the suitability of Lower Hutt and Dunedin as the next fast track locations.
This tells us the programme has been operating in only a few parts of the country and has had just nine months to prove its worth.
Davis bandied data showing that, “to date”, 252 young offenders have been through the programme, 80% of whom have not re-offended.
Under the programme, Police immediately share a child’s information with Oranga Tamariki within 24 hours after they offend, and a plan on how to deal with and support the young person must beagreed within 48 hours.
“Public safety is always a top priority and while youth offending has been trending down for some time, we know there is a very small group of young offenders whose age and complex underlying issues mean they are falling through the cracks,” Kelvin Davis said.
Today’s milestone comes after the launch earlier this month of “an intensive version” of the fast track programme designed to support up to 60 children for whom the standard programme is not enough.
It will involve wider, longer support programmes and will involve an intensive support social worker being assigned to the child and their family.
But while Davis spoke of youth offending trending down for some time, Police Minister Ginny Andersen pitched in to mention “the spike in youth crime” which “needed to be taken seriously”.
The Government was focused on initiatives that worked, she was adamant.
“We’re interested in evidence-based policy when it comes to getting young people back on the straight and narrow. The results of Circuit Breaker to date show that this programme works. This programme breaks the cycle of offending,” Ginny Andersen said.
“Ram raids are currently at their lowest in two years. They’ve dropped down to 35 for the month of August, following a trend downwards of 42 in July and 50 in June. We will continue to do what works so we can get on top of this type of offending and keep our communities safe.”
Then came the campaign politicking: Andersen said those figures were in stark contrast to National’s “failed boot camp experiment”, which resulted in 80% of young people reoffend after they completed the programme.
She further said the extension of the Circuit Breaker programme follows a number of initiatives already taken by the Government to respond to youth crime, including a new offence specifically targeting ram raiding, a new aggravating factor for an adult to use young people to commit a crime, an aggravated sentence for posting crimes online and requiring young offenders to attend education programmes or do community activities.
This harks back to July 19, when the PM and Justice Minister (at the time) Kiri Allen were grandstanding about the creation of a new ram-raiding criminal offence (with a maximum 10-year jail term).
The New Zealand Herald said the PM was continuing “an anti-crime policy blitz”.
Another initiative announced at that time enabled authorities to charge 12- and 13-year-olds in Youth Court when they commit ram-raids.
Hipkins said the Government was keen to deal with “repeat child offenders”, although previously announced interventions were “working for most kids”.
“But I’ve reached the conclusion that these interventions on their own are not enough to break the cycle of offending for a small, hard-core cohort of young offenders, and that stronger deterrence and consequences are required,” he said.
Kiri Allan said “we must increase the accountability” for ram-raiding children, while “continuing to break the cycle of crime and get these young people back into school, training and work”.
“Our message to any young person that commits a ram-raid is simple — there will be consequences for your actions.”
The PM nevertheless was running hot and cold.
On the one hand, the Herald reported him as saying:
“This new offence sends a strong signal that the significant harm caused by ram-raids won’t be tolerated, while also providing additional tools to be able to respond to those involved in this type of offending, particularly 12 and 13-year-olds.”
On the other, he did not blame the young criminals for their criminality. Rather:
“The system is failing them and we need to do better.”
Justice spokesperson Paul Goldsmith seized on the announcement to accuse the government of being politically opportunistic just eighty-seven days away from October’s election.
“Chris Hipkins has admitted that the Labour Government’s actions have failed to deal with the most serious and repeat retail offenders, who are responsible for many of the ram-raids that are being inflicted on Kiwi communities,” he said in a media release.
“Despite this prolific offending, it has taken until now – and three months before an election – for Labour to take further action that will keep Kiwis safer.”
The Government most certainly should have been bothered by public sentiment at that time. Fear about rising crime had hit a record high in a political survey.
The Ipsos New Zealand Issues Monitor gauges how people are feeling about different issues, how that picture has changed, which party they would trust most to fix certain issues, and what they think of the job being done by the current government.
Inflation and cost of living had been consistently rating at the top, but law and order had crept into the top five over the past year, and had been flagged by 40 per cent of respondents in the May overview as a matter of concern – a record high in the Ipsos survey.
Point of Order is a blog focused on politics and the economy run by veteran newspaper reporters Bob Edlin and Ian Templeton
1 comment:
The PM and Kiri Allen were taking a harder line on youth crime in July??
And if you believe that, I have a bridge to sell you.
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