Point of Order: Buzz from the Beehive - 22/11/24

More young offenders will get boot camp, bus drivers will get some protection – and there’s relief for southern farmers

The Government has struck more blows to show it is tough on law and order.

One announcement advised us of a bill introduced to Parliament to deal with young offenders and introduce more boot camps.

Tony Orman: How About an Outward Bound Based Youth Training Scheme?

Kids are in trouble. Just look at the news from commonplace ram raids and other crimes even at times involving youngsters in murders. It doesn’t end there. The jumbled minds of too many of todays kids sadly manifests itself in youngsters taking their own lives. In a word - suicide!

A UNICEF report found New Zealand's youth suicide rate - teenagers between 15 and 19 - to be the highest of a long list of countries. New Zealand’s adolescents are in deep trouble and at times of a tragic kind. 

David Farrar: Youth Serious Offenders

The Herald reports:

A new sentencing category – Young Serious Offender – will be introduced, allowing judges to send offenders to military-style academies.

It would apply to teenagers aged 14 to 17 years at the time of the offending, have had two offences punishable by imprisonment of 10 years or more proven in court are assessed as being likely to reoffend with previous interventions having proven unsuccessful.

Professor Robert MacCulloch: Why the Public wants Boot-camps for Young Offenders....

Why the Public wants Boot-camps for Young Offenders and how NZ's MainStream Media missed the point

The Main Stream Media has been hammering the PM & Coalition on proposals to introduce what our journos call "boot camps". OneNews located academics at Victoria University more than happy to slam National, ACT & NZ First's crime policies.

David Farrar: Understanding academic freedom

Grant Duncan writes:

I too have questioned the boot camps (on grounds of a lack of evidence of effectiveness) and queried the possible reduction of the school lunches programme. But Prof Kidman let herself down, as an academic, by resorting to an ad hominemattack. Accusing the present government (the elected representatives) of hating children and asking if they're a “death-cult” was nothing unusual on X, but was well below par for credible academic debate. And she does display the title Prof. on her X profile.

David Farrar: DPMC funded Director calls Government a death cult

You can have a reasonable disagreement on whether boot camps are effective. But someone who states that the Government hates children and is a death cult is a bad faith extremist. They're the equivalent of someone on the right who thinks Jacinda did vaccine mandates because she is paid by Pfizer. Crazy conspiracy theorists.

But Professor Kidman is not some random person. She is the co-director of He Whenua Taurikura, a supposed charity that is funded mainly by the Government. Their parent body's postal address is the Dept of PM and Cabinet.

Tony Orman: "Boot Camps” Negative Misnomer - Outdoors Youth Training is the Path

It’s difficult to understand the inward looking attitude of Police Minister Ginny Anderson to youth training camps. The title “boot camps” that she negatively uses is derogatory and distorts the intention and what they should be.

I’m of dinosaur age and did 18 year old compulsory military training (CMT) in 1950s. Initially reluctant on entering, I  soon realised and observed this was great for youngsters, dissolving arrogance in some entrants but importantly for all, developing skills and building self esteem and respect for others.

It instilled self esteem and made for better apprentice citizens and we were physically fit.

Why not reinstate CMT but adapt it to be like an Outward Bound course?

Tony Orman: Outdoors Solution to NZ’s Beleaguered Teenagers

Startling statistics on teenager suicide, pregnancy and other social ills reflects NZ government’s disregard for the outdoors and its solid values says Tony Orman 

National and its leader Christopher Luxon recently promoted military style training for wayward youths as a solution to rampant youth crime. 

The furore from the “goody two shoes” brigade lambasting National for the concept of boot camps for wayward youth has been loud. To my understanding, Luxon never mentioned the phrase “boot camps” although critics in both the media and Labour/Greens government have conveniently used “boot camps” to denigrate the concept. 

Despite these attempts to smear the concept the majority of the public, going by radio talk back, favour the idea.

Gerry Eckhoff: Boot Camps

It would seem that concept of boot camps –  no doubt modified from past attempts to change the behaviour and attitude way of a small percentage of wayward youth, has not found  favour with society's professional apologists.  

Apparently past experience has shown that around 15% of attendees benefit from boot camps which is good if you were to be one of their victims.  

Editorials attacked the National party’s resurrection of military style “boot camps” as one way of combatting ram raids and some youths’ contemptuous attitude to all norms of societal behaviour. 

Currently neither the media nor the Labour Government have published any meaningful response to the out-of-control behaviour of youth who have unlikely ever experienced any kind of sanction for their –“we don’t give a dam” behaviour. Rather perversely the Government is saying that the ram raids are diminishing as police catch the offenders - so we mustn’t overreact.  That’s a bit like saying the road toll dropped this week so we don’t really have a problem with road fatalities.   

Peter Jackson: National’s boot camp plan promising start to solution

Education the long term answer to poverty

We’re told that the fundamental problem is poverty. Well guess what? The only sure path out of poverty begins with education. Lotto isn’t going to do it, and nor is social welfare.

I understand that some of us ordinary folk might have difficulty with the extraordinarily complex idea (not!) of taking kids out of a toxic environment and giving them a chance to learn skills and develop attitudes that will change their lives for the better. The media, though, has no excuse.

Darroch Ball: The Problem with the Bollards

If bollards were the solution to ram raids and youth crime, then the National Party’s solution of fog cannons would have solved it eight years ago – because it’s the same thing.

The reason why they both won’t work is that they aren’t even touching the sides of the problem: the offenders.

It’s almost an admission of failure. They can’t deal with the offending so they just try and mitigate the effects. Folks, that’s literally the limit of these measures.