A short history of National’s fascination with boot camps

Written By: - Date published: 10:05 am, July 27th, 2024 - 24 comments
Categories: law, law and "order", national, same old national, Social issues - Tags:

I posted recently about the abuse in care report and how the release of the report jarred with National’s recent opening of a new boot camp facility.

This made me reflect on the history of National’s fascination with boot camps. And a quick trawl through old Standard posts showed that this fascination is something of an obsession.

In 2005 then National leader Don Brash proposed boot camps for young offenders as National Policy. He did this even though boot camps had been tried for 21 years as Corrective Training and had failed spectacularly, with a 94.5 per cent re-offending rate. And it was unfortunate that the primary effect of boot camps was to create faster fitter criminals.

Then in 2008 as part of its election policy National announced its fresh start programmes policy, described as “Revolutionary, year-long, intensive programmes designed to instil discipline and address underlying causes of offending; including up to three months of residential training at, for example, an army facility”.

In 2009 details of its Boot Camp policy was announced.

The military-style camp programme would target the 40 most serious young offenders and consist of up to three months’ residential training, using army type facilities or training methods.”

The programme did not go as well as had been hoped for with half of the boot camp participants reoffending within the first 12 months of their release. So much for the short sharp shock.

And National tried to keep the information secret. So much for transparency.

In 2018 John Key’s chief science advisor Peter Gluckman said this:

Harsh punishments have little deterrent effect on young people. Boot camps do not work and “scared straight” programmes have been shown to increase crime. Young offenders can find the “thrill”, or emotional “high” of violent offending, and the social rewards (such as admiration from their peers), more important to them than concerns about being caught or facing social disapproval. Youth need alternative, prosocial ways to achieve engagement and social approval.

But this did not stop National from yet again digging the policy out for the 2023 election. By this stage the boot camp policy had been exhumed so many times it was suffering serious deterioration.

They did not specify where the budget would come from apart from saying that it would be from within existing budgets.

Which is no doubt why this is happening. From Radio New Zealand:

Hundreds of charities and NGOs providing care for vulnerable children and families say they’re in limbo waiting for Oranga Tamariki to tell them whether funding will be continued, and they fear young people will be put at more risk.

Oranga Tamariki funds a range of programmes delivered by external care providers – including counselling for children; social workers in schools;  teen parent units; wrap around support for neurodivergent children,  support for foster parents and family and sexual violence programmes.

Contracts ended at the end of June – some providers received emails saying they would not be renewed. 

Others were told they would, but they have not yet received any confirmation.

The Military, who you would think are an essential part of National’s plans, do not want to know about the policy and have unequivocally stated that Defence Force Staff will not be running or staffing the camps.

Labour’s Spokesperson Willow-Jean Prime has pointed out what a waste and misdirection of resources the policy is.

From the Herald:

In government, Labour created a circuit-breaker programme to do exactly that. It got the right agencies around a young person within 48 hours of their offending and meant support services could be provided straight away to the child and their family.

This programme works. In a briefing provided to the incoming National Government, it had a 76 % success rate, meaning over three-quarters of participants were not reoffending.

Youth advocates and the present Government have acknowledged its effectiveness, but despite the success of this approach, they’re choosing to invest in military-style boot camps. They’re rejecting decades of evidence and expert advice, as they turn shallow marketing slogans into harmful policy.

Just as with the Three Strikes Policy National has never seen an irrational itch it will not scratch for political advantage. Despite the reality.

This is deeply cynical politics involving the recycling of policy by slogan that has been shown to fail time and time again and which is being funded by cuts to services that actually achieve good.

24 comments on “A short history of National’s fascination with boot camps ”

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  1. Patricia Bremner 1
    27 July 2024 at 11:13 am

    Hello Micky, No I am not surprised. An acquaintance visited after him indoors was recovering from a fall. The conversation turned to the new housing for the poor in Rotorua. Two comments left us shocked. "Why are those people getting homes with all the white ware? My grandchildren work hard and they won't get that"

    I responded that if her grandchildren were working poor getting very low wages they should apply as they might qualify for one or other schemes. She scoffed that they for Maori.

    In every other way you would think she was kind and caring, but we have discovered many people's altruism and public-spiritedness is skin deep.

    So no I am not surprised that the old calvinistic ideas stemming from "Spare the rod and spoil the child" still dominate.

    People often misunderstand the difference between teaching self control methods and self discipline with mechanisms and strategies.

    Self control gives the person a sense of self worth and community participation where they are in control. It is a mind set change. This takes time and patience to achieve.

    Boot camps belong in the outside controls, where decisions are made for the person, and routines are set. It is inflexible and can institusionalise the participant to where they need outside controls.

    You can not force feed citizenship, it comes from lived inclusive experience.

  2. Anne 2
    27 July 2024 at 11:17 am

    I recommend readers to David Slack's latest edition of "More then a Fielding" in the sidebar and in particular "Not a story" by Hazel Phillips:

    https://subslack.substack.com/p/stories-of-varying-weight

    She was charged with the task of recording hundreds of witness statements and rewriting them into survivor experiences. It is the most challenging document about what happened that I have read.

    It is not just a blot on this country's reputation but a maelstrom.

    Many of these recidivist offenders went through these 'experiences' either in institutional care or in their homes and within their extended whanau.

    Any government that imagines a boot camp is going to resolve the problem is not only living in Cloud Cuckoo Land, but they have no comprehension or genuine care at what is at stake. The solution is going to take at least two generations of constant supervisory care and support – not a pressure-cooker course at a boot camp!

    • Jilly Bee 2.1
      27 July 2024 at 1:16 pm

      I read that piece by Hazel Phillips too Anne – a very sobering read. I, and my partner worked at an institution where abuse took place, which really shocked us when it came to light – thanks to the Royal Commission. What really shook us was that the perpetrators were extremely smart at keeping everything under the radar until the bubble really burst. I do often doubt as to the efficacy of jail terms for some poor buggers who get tossed in behind bars, but I sincerely hope that the said perpetrators, whom we both knew, two of which we considered to be good friends just rot in jail. The common demominator in four of the culprits was that they were married apparently happily with biological and/or step children and that their wives were several years older than them. I've probably babbled on with far too much information, but we are both mortified and deeply saddened that it happed.

  3. Barfly 3
    27 July 2024 at 11:47 am

    All IMHO. RW voters get their jollies from seeing those they look down on being punished. RW voters love having a tough government if that government makes life harder for the poor, the unemployed, the disabled et cetera. A lot of the RW are sadistic, creepy narcissists who love to stand on the heads of the less fortunate.

    Excuse me I need to go outside and yell at some clouds.

    • Craig H 3.1
      27 July 2024 at 2:18 pm

      I get that impression as well. It gets seen in education too where things like homework are reduced as not being productive (not eliminated entirely from the education system, just reduced), so complaints appear along the lines of "I had to do homework, so why don't today's children?".

  4. Anne 4
    27 July 2024 at 11:53 am

    You are not wrong Barfly. The irony is: many of the people they "look down on" are superior to themselves in every way.

  5. Mac1 5
    27 July 2024 at 12:23 pm

    I this week attended a public meeting, with law and order on the agenda, by a visiting cabinet minister. This paragraph from the post above could have been his crib sheet. From 2008, a failed policy re-emerges in 2023. He did not claim it to be revolutionary, though.

    “Revolutionary, year-long, intensive programmes designed to instil discipline and address underlying causes of offending; including up to three months of residential training at, for example, an army facility”.

    He did twice ask where the protesters were. I think he felt under-appreciated, as there were none.

    Even though he introduced himself as a historian, he did not seem to have heard or understood the lessons of history, as Micky Savage outlines in his post.

    He did have a go at road cones. The Nats I suspect don't like being told where to go by fine upstanding red figures…..

  6. Stephen D 6
    27 July 2024 at 1:50 pm

    Paul Buchanan on Military Bootcamps.

    https://www.kiwipolitico.com/2024/07/about-boot-camps/

    “Boot camp” is a euphemism for military basic training. In basic training, which lasts approximately six weeks in most countries, followed by assignment to other military units, civilian recruits are isolated from civil society and psychologically “broken down” in order to install in them new military values and technical skills. The emphasis is reducing the individual’s notion of “self” and subordinating it to the notion of “service” via the harsh inculcation of rote obedience to authority, reflexive adherence to orders and submission of the ego to the collective good of a larger whole that is united by its common training in the skills of armed combat, i.e., the military unit. The purpose of this is to turn former civilians, with all of their notions of individuality, community and the fluid relationship between them, into soldiers, that is, a cohesive group of anonymous members of a larger hierarchical entity (the armed forces) dedicated via specialised training and political purpose to destroying designated enemies of the State.

    Put bluntly, boot camps turn civilian recruits into sociopathic killing machines aimed at State-designated enemies in which their psychological reorientation and education in the techniques and instruments of organised murder serve the interests of the State and the society from which they came and which the State purports to defend. Loyalty is to the in-group above all else (hence the saying that soldiers fight for each other and have “espirit d’corps”), and their collective murderous intent is fixated on designated ‘others” by the powers that be, as expressed by the military chain of command.”

    So we’re going to turn already troubled antisocial kids into psychopaths. Of course they will reoffend. That probably is the long term goal. We need to boost the prison population so justify commercially run mega prisons.

    • Anker 6.1
      28 July 2024 at 11:43 am

      what alternatives do you suggest to this Incognito? I believe that there is very little that works with these kids who are commonly known as having conduct disorder, an adolescent pre-cursor to anti social personality disorder (rather than psychopathy)

  7. Incognito 7
    27 July 2024 at 1:52 pm

    Three Strikes is really an ACT brainfart.

    Don’t be fooled by Randians who put free market economy, productivity & efficiency, and personal freedom & choice above everything and everybody else. They will intimidate, indoctrinate, or incarcerate anybody who gets in their way.

    • ghostwhowalksnz 7.1
      27 July 2024 at 4:26 pm

      Yes. Now they are rebranded as 'Boot Camp Academies"

    • David 7.2
      27 July 2024 at 5:33 pm

      I’m in two minds about the 3 strikes, there are certainly some truly horrific violent thugs wandering around, who should be kept off the streets for the safety of society.

      Just like there are many recidivist white collar criminals who make a fortune from tax avoidance, 3 strikes should apply to them as well.

      • Incognito 7.2.1
        27 July 2024 at 7:34 pm

        The OP is about boot camps and thus has got nothing to do with the Three Strikes Bill. Take it to OM if you want to discuss the latter instead of using typical RW diversions.

        You say that you’re in two minds but it is quite clear that you’ve firmly made up your mind already.

        • David 7.2.1.1
          28 July 2024 at 8:47 am

          Comment, 7.0 written by you, above mine at 7.2, mentions Three Strikes, not Boot Camps. Maybe you could also reply to yourself advising you, what you advised me.

          Unfortunately we do have violent criminals that should be locked away for the rest of their lives. I’m just thinking we could apply the same approach to the recidivist white collar criminals who cause immense harm to our community. Out of anger and revenge, I understand the desire for punishment. Part of me would like to see child abusers put to death, at the same time knowing it is morally wrong to take a life. I’m neither RW or LW, I’m interested in what works. Most importantly for me I don’t like authoritarian politics be it LW or RW.

          • Anker 7.2.1.1.1
            28 July 2024 at 11:38 am

            100% David! I am only interested in things that work

            • AB 7.2.1.1.1.1
              28 July 2024 at 4:08 pm

              My rule of thumb is that claims of being non-ideological are probably bogus, often intentionally deceptive, and almost invariably proffered by committed right-wingers.

              So to take your comment seriously we would need two things:

              • a detailed definition of what you mean by "works"
              • a guarantee that your statement has not at a single stroke eliminated the human capacity for predictive analysis: and that therefore it is often possible to know beforehand that something will be a disaster which means that there cannot be open slather to try anything at all no matter how wacky and see how it goes just for the hell of it
              • Anker …
                5 August 2024 at 12:05 pm

                "my rule of thumb….committed right wingers" your rule of thumb noted.

                What I mean by "works" is applying the scientific method to interventions. Hypothesis, intervention developed, testing method developed. baseline measurement taken, intervention implemented, outcome evaluation.

                Predictive analysis also known as common sense. A lot of things we don't bother to test. But predictive analysis also contributes to the development of an intervention, i.e if I do ABC then XYZ will happen.

                Remember knowledge has often been developed when wacky ideas have been tested.

                I also want to raise again Labours experient with gang affiliates running drug rehab programmes. Unfortunately no outcomes provided, although they had been required.

          • Incognito 7.2.1.1.2
            28 July 2024 at 9:15 pm

            <sigh>

            My comment @ 7 included a minor clarification of one brief mention of Three Strikes in the OP.

            The OP is about boot camps.

            Boot camps have nothing to do with Three Strikes and this is not the first time I point out your confusion re. these matters.

            You claim that you’re interested in what works yet you don’t seem to have read the OP and accept that boot camps (and Three Strikes, for that matter) don’t work.

            Lastly, irrespective of whether you’re RW or not, you conflate things and run diversions here, even mentioning capital punishment, but I won’t throw more labels at you because you’ll simply reject & deny despite the evidence in your comments.

  8. thinker 8
    27 July 2024 at 4:12 pm

    Why isn't Uffindel Minister of Boot Camps?

  9. adam 9
    27 July 2024 at 7:53 pm

    Boot to the Brown Neck Camps.

    Were do we send the white pillow cases again…

    Racists is, what racist does, I guess.

  10. Mike the Lefty 10
    28 July 2024 at 11:12 am

    I think perhaps the National wishful vision of boot camps is the type seen on TV or YouTube of American military men bawling at quaking conscripts. It might or might not be different here but we don't know. Will they let film crews in to capture it? And if they do how will we know if the participants are acting? It might become another reality TV series. I wouldn't it past National to use paid actors for the spin.

  11. Anker 11
    28 July 2024 at 11:40 am

    Why not wait and see how it goes? Maybe it will be a wretched failure, in which case since it is a trial, not too much lost.

    BTW how did it would out with Labour giving money from the proceeds of crime for gang associates to run a drug programme for gang members? Last I heard there were no stats available?

  12. Champagne Socialist 12
    28 July 2024 at 2:44 pm

    The weakness of democracy is its capacity for pointless cruelty against the most vulnerable at the behest of the majority. These types of policies have to be very careful to target those with minimal options to fight back. The disabled, the unemployed, Maori and children are usually selected. Notice that it's children (mostly Maori and let me guess – mostly from single parent homes) and not hardened adult criminals or gang members being selected for boot camps. No one would run the boot camps if they had to actually do anything more than bully 10 year olds