Yesterday, Stuff reported:
Most of the teenagers who took part in the military-style bootcamp pilot went on to allegedly re-offend within the year, the ministry has confirmed. But that doesn’t mean the Government views this as a failed experiment.
The Government had, for months, refused to confirm how many of the bootcamp participants had gone on to allegedly re-offend. But on Friday, a week after the pilot finished, Oranga Tamariki deputy chief executive Iain Chapman confirmed the alleged re-offending rate sat at about 80%.
...
Children’s Minister Karen Chhour has since introduced a bill to continue the MSA programme, including giving the Youth Court power to force young people to participate in it.
“Zero re-offending was never going to be realistic, but the goal of this programme has always been to provide meaningful supports and an opportunity for these young people to make better choices,” she said.
That bill was expected to pass in time for a new cohort to start next year.
Yesterday, RNZ also reported:
Minister, OT hail boot camp success despite majority reoffending
Seven of the 10 young men involved in the controversial military-style academy (MSA) boot camp pilot reoffended, according to Oranga Tamariki.
But the agency and its Minister is calling the programme a success, after eight of the original 10 participants successfully completed the first 12-month pilot.
During the pilot, which has just concluded, participants ran away, one was kicked out of the programme and another was killed in a three-vehicle crash.
Let’s rewind. The Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care laid bare the horrors of earlier boot camp iterations, like the Te Whakapakari Youth Programme, where young people endured physical, psychological, and sexual abuse under the guise of rehabilitation. Research from as early as 1983 showed a 71% reoffending rate within a year, climbing to a staggering 92% by 1988. The 2010 Military Activity Camp (MAC) was no better, over 80% of participants reoffended within 12 months.
Experts, from Victoria University’s forensic psychologists to the Children’s Commissioner, screamed from the rooftops that these programmes don’t work. They exacerbate trauma, entrench anti-social attitudes, and fail to address the root causes of youth offending: poverty, family harm, and systemic inequity. Yet, the coalition of chaos government ignored these numerous warnings, resurrecting a failed model with a glossy new name: Military-Style Academies.
The results? Predictably dire. Seven of the ten young men in the pilot reoffended, two landed back in youth justice residences, and one tragically died in a car crash. Another absconded during a funeral, only to be arrested for attempted armed carjacking. Karen Chhour, with breathtaking audacity, somehow calls this a success.
Her crocodile tears over the death of a participant, just like her tears over ‘unsafe workplaces’ and ‘bullying behaviour’ in Parliament, ring hollow when she refuses to pause the programme or acknowledge its systemic failures. To claim, as she does, that “zero reoffending” was never the goal is a pathetic sidestep. What, then, if not to rehabilitate, is the point of a rehabilitation programme that funnels vulnerable youth back into crime or, worse, to their graves? What is the point of a boot camp that results in higher reoffending rates than would be seen by doing nothing?
Chhour’s assertion that families are “overwhelmingly positive” about the programme is laughable when weighed against the reality: participants running away, reoffending, and facing incarceration. Her defence, that these young men, mostly Māori, are too complex to expect better outcomes, smacks of defeatism and cultural insensitivity. It’s a convenient excuse for a minister who has consistently failed to deliver, on anything.
Chhour’s tenure as Minister for Children has been marred by serial incompetence, nowhere more evident than in her mishandling of Oranga Tamariki’s communication breakdowns. Her failure to be informed of a second abscondee from the boot camp pilot, described by her own words as “unacceptable” exposes a staggering lack of oversight. Oranga Tamariki’s acting chief executive, Andrew Bridgman, dismissed this as a “simple mistake” within a “big bureaucracy of 4000 people,” but Chhour’s inability to ensure basic communication channels function properly reflects her broader inadequacy. She was left in the dark about critical incidents, including absconding participants, until media scrutiny forced the issue into the open, undermining her claims of accountability.
This isn’t an isolated lapse, Oranga Tamariki’s systemic failure to communicate effectively with providers, as highlighted by the Public Service Association, saw long-standing services blindsided by funding cuts, with Chhour callously labelling them as “abusing funds” without any evidence to substantiate her claims. Her refusal to engage with the Children’s Commissioner on use-of-force powers in boot camps further underscores her aversion to scrutiny and collaborative governance.
Chhour’s failures extend beyond Oranga Tamariki to her role as Associate Minister of Police, where her oversight of firearms reform has been equally dismal. Charged with strengthening gun control in the wake of the 2019 Christchurch mosque attacks, Chhour has failed to register her own weapons while presiding over a stalled Firearms Registry she wants to get rid off, with only 30% of licensed firearms owners registered by mid-2024, despite a five-year deadline. Her inability to drive compliance or address loopholes in the Arms Act has left communities vulnerable, with illegal firearms still circulating among criminals. This mirrors her approach to youth justice: loud promises, minimal delivery, and a refusal to heed expert warnings or accept her own limitations.
Luxon on bringing back boot camps:
— Nick (@StrayDogNZ) July 4, 2024
"We're going to do things differently, we're going to try things. And some things may work, and some things may not work but we're going to do things differently."
That's cool, it's only the most vulnerable kids lives you're experimenting with https://t.co/J1pAGljZlv pic.twitter.com/N7TsCZgzOq
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon’s “try something different” mantra is a hollow soundbite when the “something” is a recycled failure that costs $51 million over four years while Māori youth, who make up 80-85% of the cohort, bear the brunt. The coalition’s claim of success isn't just ludicrous, it’s a betrayal of vulnerable young people and a slap in the face to survivors of past boot camp abuses. Chhour and her government are not just out of touch; they’re wilfully blind, peddling a failed experiment as progress while the evidence, and the human cost, shows otherwise.
