By CARROLL DU CHATEAU
'Shane' stands in front of the judge in standard youth offenders' uniform - hooded sweatshirt, battered Nikes, outsize jeans hanging on skinny hips, baseball cap clutched in his hands, monosyllabic.
Only when Judge Heather Simpson asks him to "introduce your family please" does he glance to the public gallery of the North Shore Youth Court. "This is my mum," he says. "And this is my auntie, my little sister ... "
For the entire day Judge Simpson coaxes information out of these often recalcitrant kids. While some, especially the girls, are articulate and smiling, most are virtually mute.
Out at Manukau the aggro, confusion and examples of messy families ratchet up. This is problem country. Demographics spell a young, brown population. Youth Court sits two days most weeks and today Judge Simpson has 30 cases to hear.
Families, when they turn up, are often heavily tattooed, fathers frequently absent. Many mothers have babes in arms, plus toddlers. A sibling sports a large purple bruise on her cheekbone. A father asks the judge, who bans his son from alcohol because of violence problems, if he can drink with him while at home on bail. A mother, whose son had been picked up by police at 2 am, cannot see the point of a curfew. Typically Simpson takes matters into her own hands: "You're on supported curfew from 8 pm to 6 am with your grandmother."
The offenders have obvious problems. Girls with nasty lip studs, guys with blue and white Black Power kerchiefs wrapped round their arms - all in American rapper gear (this when they're arguing they can't go to school because they can't afford the uniform). One can't complete his letters of apology because he can't write. At least two are obviously pregnant. Most need counselling for drug and alcohol abuse. Many don't turn up.
Throughout, Judge Simpson keeps hammering out the message: "It's up to you to make this work 'David.' Remember, you can be uplifted from your grandfather's and taken to residential care."
It is the threat of arrest and residential care that keeps most kids in the system. While North Shore offenders are keen to keep their records clean and passports intact, South Aucklanders want to keep out of "homes" and jail.
"It's like pulling teeth," says Judge Simpson later. "Some kids are totally out of control ... I can tell the ones who are going to do well. If they can look me in the eye, tell me what's going on. It's the ones who just stare at the floor and say 'uh, uh' - they're the ones I'll see back next month ... Did you hear my speech about education being important, especially for girls. At least one of the girls who came before me today was pregnant."
The Youth Court, which sits within the District Court System and deals with youngsters between 14 and 17, is largely anonymous. To give kids a genuine shot at a fresh start, nothing can be reported in enough detail to identify anyone. If offenders (commonly guilty of burglary, assault, driving without a licence, car conversion through to aggravated robbery, arson and even rape) complete the conditions imposed by the judge through a Family Group Conference, they can walk out of here without a criminal record.
It is a tough ask. By the time they get to the Youth Court youngsters have usually been through informal police diversion schemes. The male/female ratio runs at around 70/30. Eighty per cent have serious drug and alcohol problems. Eighty per cent are not at school. Their crimes are regular and often serious. This is their last chance. And Auckland's five Youth Court judges, coordinated by liaison judge Simpson, make sure they know it.
"You keep to your bail agreements and no one need ever know you were here," she says. "Break your side of the bargain and we'll arrest you."
While murder and manslaughter charges are moved to the adult system, serious charges such as rape and home invasion (which commonly carry heavy prison sentences) often stay in Youth Court. Explains chief Youth Court Judge David Carruthers, "But only when the family and victim agree. These kids have to show terrific remorse, do a lot to put things right. And jailing them is not always helpful to any of us."
Judges have four options: bail, usually to a relative; Social Welfare custody (usually a family-based "home"); custody of the Director General (meaning a secure residential unit such as Weymouth); or, if beds are short, the police cells. Cutoff time, when youths move over to the District Court - and a strong chance of jail - is 17-and-a-half, and Simpson sticks to the deadline.
On paper the method works. "Wellington has produced astounding results," says Carruthers. "Over the past three years we've had a reduction of two-thirds in youth offending ... our 30 recidivist offenders are now down to two cases."
Although Simpson acknowledges that Auckland figures are less brilliant, they are a big improvement over adult post-prison recidivism, which sits at around 90 per cent. "Of five teenagers who appear in Youth Court, four never come back," she says.
However, behind the figures are frustrations. The system is centred round the Family Group Conference - a method which even Carruthers acknowledges. "When it works well, it is brilliant. When it doesn't, it's the worst thing in the world." Why? "It's easy to excuse kids sometimes. We've got to make them accountable."
Conferences are put together by three people - the Department of Child, Youth and Family Services youth justice co-coordinator, a Police Youth Aid officer plus a Youth Court lawyer - all on the taxpayer payroll. By law the conference must take place within two weeks of the judge's order, and works by pulling the victims, families and those close to offenders together, discussing why the kid is out of control and what can be done to rein him in.
"The system works best when the net is spread really wide," says Carruthers. "Sometimes dad's been missing - and longed for - for years and he turns up. Sometimes an aunt steps in ... most families have members who've done really well. It's a matter of finding positive role models."
Echoes Simpson, "The best FGCs are those that include aunties, school teachers, scout masters - up to 50 people."
An action plan is put together, typically including parenting and limit-setting skills for parents, community work, discipline, drug and alcohol bans and counselling (maybe three months in a rehab centre such as Odyssey House), literacy classes, chores, hopefully a job or apprenticeship for youths.
Offenders are routinely bailed to stay with a designated caregiver at an agreed address, keep an 8 pm-6 am curfew, avoid mates who helped them into trouble, write letters of apology to victims, pay for damages (usually around $10 a week).
However, reality is far from the ideal. When I attempt to sit in on an FGC, neither victim nor offender show up. Instead David Norman from Police Youth Aid, Ioli Tutua-Nathan from CYFS Manurewa's seven-strong Maori Youth Justice team, and Kate McNeely, a youth lawyer who works a breathless schedule, representing young offenders and helping put together FGCs, sit in the Otahuhu Town Hall in their walk shorts and slacks and talk about the system.
It is an uneasy alliance. When McNeely estimates that up to 50 per cent of FGCs are fizzers like this one, Tutua-Nathan contradicts her. "No, no, it's not that bad. You must be laidback to last in this job." Even after weeks of getting this conference together, she is grateful that the father phoned minutes before the scheduled meeting to say he had forgotten and that they were up North. This, she says, is one of the better families she deals with. "At least the father took time out to ring ... to me that's taking some responsibility."
The victim, a diminutive Asian man, is too scared to come for fear that once recognised, he will be singled out for further attack. Explains Tutua-Nathan: "He had very little English, just kept saying, through an interpreter, 'No, no, no!"'
Disturbing attitudes creep in. Tutua-Nathan says her supervisor did not want her to talk or open her FGC to scrutiny, and that Social Welfare policy is to not pick up and deliver offenders to conferences. Why? Because the department is wary of making young people too dependent - in CYFS-speak "co-dependent" - on social workers. So, while lawyers, police, CYFS coordinators, teachers and families waste their time and victims pluck up the courage to appear, their young tormentors can stand them up at will. Why? Because CYFS thinks it is politically incorrect to take control by making sure they get there.
Police are tougher. Says Norman, "There seem to be more rights for the offender than the victim ... if we get a strong feeling they're not going to show, we'll collect them, but it's done in a friendly, not a policing kind of way."
Nor, incredibly, is attendance at the FGC an integral part of a bail agreement. Such a tweak to the system would give police the right to arrest offenders if they did not show up.
After 45 minutes of shoulder-shrugging, the team scatters. Conference is rescheduled for two weeks. Will there be any punishment for non-attendance? Maybe. Says McNeely, "Ioli can put a report into the judge and she'll probably give a bit of a rev up."And if he continues to evade? "The judge will issue a warrant for his arrest."
McNeely, laughingly describing herself as a "Claytons lawyer" because of Youth Court obligations to put the needs of victims alongside those of her clients, asks a couple of offenders if I can observe their conference in action, and they decline. So I'm out. Although CYFS - and probably the victims - agreed, the offenders had the ultimate veto. Adds Norman later, "The legislation around who is allowed to an FGC is tight. Sometimes I can't go as a second Youth Aid officer when we need that to happen. When things get volatile and we need that back-up."
Lack of residential care is an obvious weak link in the system. Despite a system that stipulates that kids who don't comply can be arrested and dealt to, few are taken away from problem families - mainly because there are only 50-odd beds in Auckland.
Says McNeely, "People say it's the soft option, that kids get away with murder, but Youth Court needs more options available to it - say, 12 months in a secure residence for crimes that fetch four to five years in adult court. The most Youth Court can impose is three months' residential care followed by three months' supervision. We need stiffer sentences and more residential facilities for these kids."
The other weak link in the chain is, obviously, CYFS. Too often Judge Simpson growls, "Why are things dragging on so long? The statutory time limit between first appearance and a Family Group Conference is two weeks." And later, "He was actually placed by the department at a particular place [a residential home] and they didn't pick him up to come to court. This will not do."
Excuses are always the same. Staff on leave or sick. (Tutua-Nathan says one team member is always away, meaning they only ever have four working). The file didn't get to the right person until yesterday. Systems failures. 350 programmes for youth offenders in South Auckland alone to deal with. Overall there's an air of resignation around a system that asks people to do one of the hardest jobs in the world, then paralyses them with poor management and politically correct attitudes. McNeely sticks up for CYFS coordinators: they're overworked, they have had so many changes.
The Youth Court system is now the lynchpin for a total overhaul of youth justice. In September a Task Force headed by Judge Carruthers will deliver a blueprint for pushing the system into four new areas:
Drug and alcohol initiatives
Managing kids who are not at school
Mentoring
Attacking the tough end of offending "where we're really doing badly at the moment."
Despite its shortcomings the Youth Court system, pioneered in New Zealand, is internationally recognised as the most successful method of stopping young people becoming hardened criminals.
Says Carruthers, "The Family Group Conference is New Zealand's gift to the world. We pioneered this - that's why we got some things wrong."
Contrary to public perception, he insists his court is not a wet-teatowel-over-the-wrist alternative that lets youths thumb their nose at society. "Victims' rights and needs are uppermost ... penalties can be harsh ... "
Certainly Carruthers' schedule is constantly interrupted by groups studying the system. "It's now been adopted by Australia, South Africa, Britain, Ireland, and most recently European countries are looking at it."
The idea was bred from Maori misgivings about their youth being incarcerated - a need to make families more responsible for their offspring's behaviour - and driven by outgoing Chief Social Worker Mike Doolan and first Youth Court Judge Mick Brown in 1989. The challenge: to keep kids out of jail while still maintaining their respect - both for society and the system.
Which brings us back to Shane. He stands there, red-eyed, looking slightly dazed. In his pocket are a couple of simple, well-folded letters of apology which he reads to the court. His mother sits in the front row, smiling despite her worn-out shoulders. In the row behind is the man Shane burgled, his square-set shoulders and air of confidence setting him apart from this sad scene.
This man, we'll call Bill, is one of the many victims who, once they get to a Family Group Conference, are so distressed that they offer to mentor their tormentor. In this case Bill is offering a job, supervision, support. And looking at Shane, who has already had 12 sessions for alcohol and drug abuse, Bill has a bumpy road ahead.
The help is accepted with both hands. Says the judge, "Remember, you're not doing this for me, you're doing it for you. Thanks everyone for your support of this young man ... I'm going to discharge you under section 282. It's a good result. You're getting a fresh chance. I don't want to see you back here."
With a red-faced, "thank you maam," flanked by his mentor and trailed by his delighted mother, Shane bolts.
The tough business of keeping young offenders out of jail
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