Editorial: Child arrests an absurd blight on our society

EDITORIAL:

That 500 children, aged under 12, have been arrested in the past five years should be a wake up call.

Even more troubling is the appalling figure of 23,000 children aged under 15 arrested between 2014 and 2018. It would do us good to reflect on that. We all hold a stake in this.

It must be said, for the chronically high numbers of arrests, the police are largely doing a very good job in a tough environment.

None of the under-12-year-olds arrested had ended up before the courts because 10 is the age of criminal responsibility and children up to 12 could be charged only for murder or manslaughter, of which there were no cases.

A sign of the police dedication to the issue is that numbers of arrests have been dropping as officers explore alternatives to arrests, such as referring to social agencies.

In most situations, the children are taken home. But in more serious cases or where their homes are unsafe they are referred to youth aid or Oranga Tamariki.

Agencies spoken to by the Herald echoed similar views on the root causes, many identifying poverty as the "major driver".

A recent initiative to look at the youths involved in police pursuits found some said they took cars because they had no transport and were hungry so they need to get food.

Wait. What? That no food is being provided to young people in New Zealand should hit us like a slap to the face. Our kids are out in the streets because they are not being provided with the necessities for life. Lifewise spokesman Aaron Hendry says as much: "We are noticing more and more young people living on the streets of Auckland, and 80 to 90 per cent are Māori."

These desperate young people are landing up in the judicial system - finger-printed and photographed and entered into police files - as apprentices to a life of crime. Poverty has environmentally conditioned them to forage to eat and to steal to survive.

Over a year ago Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced short-term goals to reduce the numbers of children living in poverty by 70,000 over three years. Much of the gains were hoped to be achieved through Labour's Families Package which kicked off in on July 1 last year. That includes increases to Working for Families, the Accommodation Supplement and measures such as a $60 a week payment for newborn babies.

The package was expected to benefit 384,000 families - and Treasury calculated it would lift 64,000 children out of poverty.

The Child Poverty Reduction Bill passed in Parliament at the end of last year with near unanimous support from political parties. The bill set measures and targets for reducing child poverty, inform strategy to achieve that - and require transparent reporting on poverty levels and introduce accountability for governments.

The Coalition Government asked for the tools to tackle this. It's to be hoped the answers it puts up can keep reducing child arrests. And this Government must honour its promise to be held accountable.