Former Minister for Maori Affairs Dover Samuels says don't rely on whanau to help Maori prison inmates turn a corner because often home is where they learned to be criminals.
He said the call for greater whanau involvement in inmates' rehabilitation was "culturally correct claptrap".
Mr Samuels said boot camp would do a better job of straightening up Maori early in the offending cycle rather than "spoonfeeding young people who have been disconnected from family values because sometimes their whanau don't have decent values themselves."
He was responding to Labour's Tai Tokerau MP Kelvin Davis's suggestion for more whanau engagement during the rehabilitation of Maori inmates.
Both men were referring to the Waitangi Tribunal Report on the Crown and Disproportionate Reoffending Rates released last week, which said Department of Corrections did nothing to help reduce the high number of Maori incarceration or reoffending.