The Government is trialling a military-style academy in an effort to combat youth crime. Photo / Getty Images
How to deal with recidivist youth offenders is a never-ending thorny issue constantly troubling the Government. But not just the Government; youth workers, police, security guards, parents and caregivers, and the community as a whole.
What to do. Lock the youths up and throw away the key? Put them in bootcamps? (The Government calls them military-style academies).
On the one hand, critics complain that youth offenders under the age of 18 get off too lightly: a family conference, a bit of community service and then they’re back doing another ram raid or burglary.
On the other, experts warn that locking youths up or putting them through military-style camps can do more harm than good. There’s no easy answer to a problem that plagues communities around the world.
Oranga Tamariki refuses to say how many of the bootcamp pilot participants have reoffended after the tragic death of one young person in a car crash last year, followed by several others absconding.
Oranga Tamariki deputy chief executive and pilot lead Iain Chapman says there are encouraging signs that the pilot is working, despite the criticism.
Whatever the answer, youth crime is a community problem. It affects everyone. At the upper end, retailers and shoppers are terrified by armed robberies; at the lower end, Kiwis are maddened when their cars are stolen or their property is covered in graffiti.
The Government will point to encouraging stats. The number of crimes committed by youths has decreased year on year for some time. But the frequency and level of offending by the group that do show up in the stats has increased. In short, that group are behaving badly more often.
And gang membership has increased to more than 10,000, often young people looking for a sense of brotherhood and belonging. With that comes an explosion in the distribution and use of methamphetamine.
New Zealanders look to the Government to “fix” the problem but, with no easy answer in sight, we should be looking more widely and considering different options. All Blacks great Sean Fitzpatrick chairs the global charity Laureus Sport for Good Foundation in London, set up on the urging of the late Nelson Mandela 25 years ago.
Mandela, addressing the elite sport members who make up the foundation, urged them to use their reputations and sport to help bring about social change. Sport, he told them, “speaks to youth in a language they understand. It laughs in the face of all types of discrimination”.
The foundation has since helped millions of children and youths in 40 countries take part in sport-based activities. Some of its projects are unrelatable to New Zealand. In many cases, the Laureus Foundation is saving kids from sweatshops, child prostitution or becoming illiterate child brides, all through sport.
But some of its projects can be replicated in New Zealand. In London it launched a project called Midnight Basketball, replicating an initiative by Laureus member and basketball great Michael Jordan in Chicago.
A rundown gymnasium in a closed-up school in east London was restored, and now opens each day between 11pm and 5am. Local youths come to play basketball and have something to eat. They are encouraged by mentors to go back to school or learn a skill, and they learn teamwork, discipline and structure.
Having seen the results, Fitzpatrick thinks sport can be a game-changer for troubled or disadvantaged youths in any country.
In the past Laureus has supported New Zealand’s Billy Graham Youth Foundation, which runs fitness and boxing gyms. Fitzpatrick has also had discussions with Sport New Zealand CEO Raelene Castle about how the two organisations can work together to use sport as a way of reducing youth crime.
And Fitzpatrick has been involved in early discussions about Christchurch becoming a Laureus “model city”, where local organisations are supported to tackle social issues through sport and physical activity.
An example of what is already working is The Mill, a youth facility and gym in Kaikohe. A new documentary, Kaikohe Blood & Fire, that premieres in Auckland this weekend, follows the remarkable turnaround of a group of kickboxers training at the gym. Hundreds of local kids use The Mill, mostly for free, and yet the gym’s owners have had to plead for funds in the past to keep the place open.
The Government, local and regional bodies, charities, philanthropists and those able to volunteer would do well to back organisations that are already making a difference in keeping youths, often from backgrounds of abuse, neglect and poverty, off the streets, to give them a sense of purpose and self-worth. Rather than trying to reinvent the wheel, why not support the programmes that are already working?
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