Oranga Tamariki will not publish the scale of reoffending during any future military-style academy programmes as the agency laments the harm caused by releasing information early in its bootcamp pilot.
It comes as officials prepare for Parliament to pass legislation enabling new military-style academy (MSA) facilities for young people with serious levels of offending.
Dubbed “MSA 2.0″, the camps are to run next year, which Oranga Tamariki’s pilot lead suggests should involve offenders spending double the time in a youth justice facility that participants have to date.
The Government’s controversial 12-month bootcamp pilot will conclude at the end of this month, with eight of the original 10 teenage participants making it through three months in Palmerston North’s youth justice residence and nine months in the community under the eye of mentors and social workers.
Born from National and Act 2023 election policy and designed to address then-persistent youth offending, the pilot drew widespread criticism from Opposition parties, some academics and abuse survivors, who doubted the efficacy of bootcamp-style programmes and the abuse linked to previous iterations.
Oranga Tamariki, the agency leading the pilot, initially confirmed several of the 10 participants had reoffended, before reversing its position and refusing to respond to further reports, citing the harm the teenagers – aged 15-18 – had suffered under the spotlight as critics deemed the pilot a failure.
Scrutiny peaked after the death of one participant in a car crash near Tīrau in November, which was followed by two other participants absconding for several days and allegedly offending. Soon afterwards, another participant was also facing charges for alleged offending.
In June, Oranga Tamariki confirmed one participant had been kicked out of the pilot and transferred to Corrections after a court appearance.
Oranga Tamariki deputy chief executive and pilot lead Iain Chapman, speaking exclusively to the Herald, acknowledged the agency had said it would publish participant offending instances but admitted doing so had been “harmful” and damaging”.
“These kids have never had that type of pressure, and then you add into the mix the death. That rattled those kids.”
His comments echoed Children’s Minister Karen Chhour, who last month accepted that the death, which was not linked to pilot activities, had caused “a lot of grief and did derail some of these young people mentally”.
Chapman confirmed Oranga Tamariki would use the same approach of not discussing reoffending during future bootcamps, which were planned for next year.
“As we go into any future MSA, we won’t be talking about it, as we wouldn’t any young person in residence.”
Speculation that more than half of the participants had reoffended had been aired largely by Opposition politicians, but neither Chhour nor Chapman had addressed it.
The argument often heard from Labour’s Willow-Jean Prime and the Green Party’s Tamatha Paul was that the pilot could not be used to inform legislation enabling future bootcamps until its impact on reoffending could be assessed.
Chapman told the Herald he didn’t see reoffending as a sign of failure, referencing how New Zealand reflected a global trend showing almost nine out of 10 sentenced young offenders would reoffend within 12 months.
“Our biggest critics, be it members of the public, be it whoever, are those who don’t know what we do, and if they had the opportunity to really see what we’re doing, my experience in observing critics [is that] gaining exposure to the programme changed their mind.”
It’s understood the level of reoffending would be addressed in Oranga Tamariki’s final assessment of the pilot, likely to be published later this year.
Oranga Tamariki’s most recent review of the pilot provided an insight into the level of reoffending through references to participants returning to the Palmerston North facility when they were supposed to be in the community.
The review, released in June, confirmed some participants had allegedly reoffended in ways deemed “minor and some more serious”. It also stated reviewers had interviewed six participants in a youth justice facility.
The review detailed the challenge involved in rehabilitating what were considered some of the country’s most high-profile recidivist offenders, noting how some had thrived but others struggled.
“I tried to change but f*** it’s hard ... I tried to stay out but it didn’t last very long,” one participant told the review.
While ending offending had been an “ideal outcome”, the review said agency staff and stakeholders had acknowledged that the goal was “not realistic” given the participants’ records of offending.
The review did mention a decrease in the severity and frequency of offending over the duration of the pilot.
In August, the House was expected to pass a bill that would allow judges to send recidivist young offenders to an MSA programme.
While the pilot’s in-residence phase had been limited to three months due to restrictions in current legislation, Government ministers – including Prime Minister Christopher Luxon – had voiced support for participants to spend longer in residences.
Chapman echoed some of the review’s findings as he identified several successes in the in-residence phase, pointing to the structured regime that life in a bespoke unit gave the teens.
He agreed more time in-residence would be beneficial. While stressing the matter was hypothetical given the legislation hadn’t been passed, Chapman suggested six months “feels about right”.
Chapman said officials were currently developing a plan for “MSA 2.0”, which he expected would be run next year and would likely repeat the 10-person cohort.
Adam Pearse is the deputy political editor and part of the NZ Herald’s press gallery team based at Parliament in Wellington. He has worked for NZME since 2018, reporting for the Northern Advocate in Whangārei and the Herald in Auckland.