Being Māori myself, I felt I had one foot in the Māori world and one foot in the Pakeha world but was never good enough for either
Youth bootcamps have a “dark history” in New Zealand but can still play a vital role in rehabilitating juvenile offenders, according to the Minister for Children, Karen Chhour – a belief fuelled by her own experiences as a child in state care.
Karen Chhour
“It’s deeply personal to me,” Chhour says of the government’s plans to overhaul the treatment of serious youth offenders, including a bootcamp pilot which launched this week in Palmerston North.
Chhour, who was in and out of state care from the age of 10, says the routine and discipline of military-style youth activities run by St John helped shape her as a teen and young adult.
She says young offenders will benefit from similar programs at the bootcamp, officially called the Military-Style Academy Pilot. “Being Māori myself, I felt I had one foot in the Māori world and one foot in the Pakeha world but was never good enough for either,” says Chhour.
“So there was no real place I belonged and no place I could call home… Marching on parade with your teammates in your formal gear, knowing you’ve got purpose and something you’re working towards, that was huge to the young people I worked with in the community.”
But Labour’s spokesperson for children, Willow-Jean Prime, is not convinced.
Willow-Jean Prime
“It’s an experiment and it reintroduces approaches that haven’t worked in the past,” she says. “
There’s a tough-on-crime, punitive rhetoric around these military-style camps which is popular with their (ACT Party) voter base.
“My fear is the experts are all saying this is the wrong approach and could do harm to the young people who are participating, but they continue to dismiss all that and push ahead.”
Holding pens
At the Te Au rere a te Tonga detention centre, Chhour’s enthusiasm is palpable as she inspects an outdoor gym and obstacle course installed for the bootcamp pilot.
The buildings are adorned with military imagery, including Vietnam War-era helicopters and Māori Battalion soldiers performing a haka in the deserts of North Africa during World War II.
On the wall, a run-sheet details the daily routine from wake-up at 0645 to lights out at 2130, while the beds at the facility are impeccably made and have uniforms neatly folded and laid out on top.
The pilot will involve 10 teenage boys, aged 15 to 17, who will spend three months in the bootcamp, then nine months transitioning back into the community with intensive supervision and wraparound support.
Officials at Oranga Tamariki, who are running the trial, say the participants have mostly been convicted of aggravated robbery. Nine of the 10 are Māori.
“There will be a focus on structure and routine, addressing criminal behaviours, physical activity and vocational training,” Chhour says.
“There will be a full assessment of each young person’s individual needs. This isn’t a one-size-fits-all program, where they’re all put through the same routine.”
New category
The pilot is being conducted under existing legislation but the long-term plan is to create a new category of Young Serious Offender (YSO) that will allow it to be expanded significantly.
A judge will be able to make a YSO declaration if an offender is guilty of at least two offences punishable by imprisonment of 10 years or more, has been assessed as likely to reoffend and is aged 14 to 17 (although 14-year-olds will not be eligible for bootcamps).
A YSO declaration allows a range of measures, including increased electronic monitoring and giving police the power to arrest without warrant for breaches of court orders or bail conditions.
Bootcamps under the YSO would last for a full year, rather than three months, and the transition period would be extended from nine months to at least a year.
“Hopefully judges will see this as a better alternative to what’s on offer now and take it up,” Chhour says.
“No judge wants to sentence a young person to a youth detention facility knowing that it’s just a holding pen for prison, which it currently is, let’s be honest.”
Lives ruined
Chhour says amendments to the Oranga Tamariki Act 1989, allowing YSO declarations, are being drafted. They will be introduced to Parliament this year and should pass into law next year.
But she acknowledges past failures involving military-style bootcamps mean many will be sceptical about the latest version. “I know there’s a dark history to our care and protection system,” she says.
“That history and its failures are the reason I put my hand up [to oversee the YSO program], because I want to ensure that any policy involving the young people I’m responsible for is done in a way that ensures they’re safe and getting the support they need to turn their lives around.”
The Royal Commission of Inquiry into Historical Abuse in State and Faith-based Care – tabled in Parliament last week – included a case study of bootcamps held at Aotea Great Barrier Island in the 1970s by the Te Whakapakari Youth Program.
It found that youths who were supposed to be learning survival skills and developing confidence were instead subject to “cruel and inhumane treatment”, including sexual assaults.
“Research demonstrates that ‘bootcamps’ and other harsh ‘shortsharp-shock’ interventions for youth are ineffective at reducing repeat offending,” the Royal Commission says.
“Young people were sent to Whakapakari to be ‘straightened out’. Instead, their lives were ruined by the abuse they suffered there.” Chhour says the program she’s establishing is fundamentally different to the bootcamps of the past, featuring supportive mentors rather than badgering drill sergeants and proper support once participants return home from the camp environment.
“We’re not here to break them down and make them up. We’re here to actually build their self-esteem and make sure they leave better than when they came in,” she says. “The key difference to what we’ve done before is focusing on the transition back into the community, making sure the teenagers are well set up for the future, including a pathway to education, training or employment.”
She says previous boot camps were held in isolated environments, allowing predators to thrive.
“[These] will be very open and transparent. The Children’s Commission, the Ombudsman, the independent monitor all have the ability to show up at any time without notice to speak to these young people.”
Impacts ‘unclear’
Prime says there are no guarantees that the mistakes of the past will not be repeated.
“It’s a huge ask of the public to trust the government saying that this will be different, especially when we’ve just received the Royal Commission’s report,” she says.
“The Prime Minister says the terrible things that happened won’t happen again but I challenge that because there’s still inappropriate things happening in youth justice residences.
“As recently as February there was roughing up of young children, inappropriate relationships between staff and young people, the bringing in of contraband, supplying pornography on their phones.”
Prime called on the government to “drop the military nonsense” and instead focus on the support programs in the community that will take place after the boot camp.
“We know they work,” she said.
Data analytics firm ImpactLab last year reviewed dozens of studies into military-style residential youth programs in New Zealand and overseas.
The review, commissioned by Wellington-based charity the Billy Graham Youth Foundation, suggested bootcamps could reduce reoffending rates over 12 to 18 months but the impact was “smallto-nil” after participants had been out of the camp for more than two years.
“The long-term impact of [military camps] on the rate and seriousness of post-program youth offending remains unclear,” it found.
“International research suggests that programs which emphasise therapeutic support, treatment and education have a slightly stronger effect on re-offending rates compared to those that emphasis military-style discipline.”
One New Zealand study from 2015 found that 86% of bootcamp participants reoffended within 12 months. Prime says such statistics show the government is trying “to turn marketing slogans into policy” by proceeding with its plan.
Chhour’s stance is that “we have to try something different” to help young offenders and reduce the impact their crimes have on the community.
“That’s what this is,” she says.
“These young people need to know that they have support, that we haven’t given up on them. What we’ve done over the past 20 years hasn’t worked. We’re trying something different. What if it does work?”
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