National promises to get tough on youth crime

Written By: - Date published: 1:08 pm, August 13th, 2017 - 77 comments
Categories: bill english, class war, crime, election 2017, national, Politics, poverty, same old national, the praiseworthy and the pitiful, you couldn't make this shit up - Tags:

This is a subject I feel I am able to comment on with some authority.  I have worked in the Youth Court as a lawyer representing young people since its inception in 1989.

The Government is planning a good old fashioned lock them up and throw away the key approach to youth offending.  From Stuff:

National is promising to create a new bootcamp for youth offenders at the Waiouru Army camp, training alongside New Zealand’s soldiers.

Making the announcement in Auckland, Prime Minister Bill English said National would crack down on the most serious young offenders and hold “negligent parents” to account.

“It’s become clear that there is a small group of around 150 very serious young offenders for whom our Youth Justice System in it’s current form just doesn’t work,” English said.

“These are 14 to 17-year-olds who’ve committed very serious offences with sentences up to 14 years – that is serious assault, sexual assaults, aggravated robbery and murder.

“The kind of offences that have made people feel unsafe in their dairies, in their workplaces and that’s not good enough for us or for New Zealand.”

In a move to reaffirm National as the “law and order party”, English announced a $60m package to deal with the most violent and recidivist young offenders.

Justice Minister Amy Adams laid out the details of the proposal.

“We will introduce a Young Serious Offender (YSO) classification which will see this very small group of the most hardened young offenders dealt with in ways that better reflect the seriousness of their crimes and help ensure fewer people are victimised.

“As a part of this, we will establish a defence-led Junior Training Academy based at the Waiouru Training Camp. Judges will be able to order YSOs who commit serious subsequent offences to attend the Academy for one year. The Academy will support YSOs to address problems like addiction or a lack of literacy and numeracy skills, helping them lead better lives while keeping the public safe.

“Those who fail to complete their time at the Academy will serve a commensurate adult sentence of imprisonment instead,” she said.

“These are young people who have been in and out of Youth Court but have shown no willingness or ability to change their behaviour. We are not prepared to just sit back and allow their victims to keep racking up until they reach adulthood.”

National estimated about 50 serious youth offenders per year, would be sent to the Junior Training Academy. That scheme would cost about $30 million over four years.

Other changes under the YSO classification would include tightening bail requirements, increasing the use of electronic monitoring, and removing the ability for the most serious young offenders to be released early from any youth justice custodial sentences.

A new National Government would also look at the role parents played in their children’s spiral to an early life of crime.

“In many cases, young people who offend have few good role models or are given the freedom to commit crimes,” Adams said.

“We will make changes to hold their parents to account, including by allowing police to issue instant infringement notices to parents of children under 14 walking the streets without supervision between 12am and 5am.

“In addition, any breaches of court orders directed at a young person’s parent will be recorded on that parent’s criminal record. A loophole means this is not the case currently.”

Where do I start?

Well National has already tried a military style sentence for up to 40 youth offenders.  John Key announced the package in 2009 in these terms:

 Yes, they’ll involve some marching exercises. Yes, they’ll involve military facilities, but they’ll also include long-term mentoring, drug and alcohol rehabilitation, education and an assisted move back into the community.”

So nothing new is being announced.  And the results left a lot to be desired.  My perception of them is that they did not work that well.  The young people who went on these camps have had years of devastation to their lives which is not solved by a quick stint in the army.

Send the toughest ones who do not commit to boot camp to adult prison?  Way to introduce them to and cement their positions with the gangs.  This will only reinforce what happens already as hardened young people become adult criminals.

And let me say this as clearly as I can.  The introduction of a Young Serious Offender classification will have some young people doing whatever they can to achieve this status.  They will wear it as a badge of honour.  I bet that during the next couple of weeks a new youth gang calling itself the YSOs will appear.

And removing the ability for serious offenders to get early release?  How many levels of stupidity is this?  Early release is there so that good behaviour and progress on their plans can be incentivised.  Without it the facility staff will have no chance to change behaviour because there will be no incentive for the young person to do so.

Tightening bail conditions for YSOs?  Sounds good although electronic monitoring is used all the time already.

And fining parents whose kids are out walking at night?  Way to add to the misery of enforced poverty.

Can I say this as simply as possible.  I have dealt with young people and the whanau for decades.  Initially the system worked remarkably well but then the Ruth Richardson benefit cuts hit the poorest families hard and reduced their living standards to under the poverty line.

The young people I deal with have typically been out of mainstream school for a couple of years.  They will live in households that either rely on benefits or on parents who are working multiple jobs to get by.  Drug use is rampant.  Most of them are well known to Oranga Tamariki and the police.  Their final graduation to Youth Court is generally predicted by the authorities.  Their problems are evident way before the time they become teenagers.

Very occasionally I act for a young person from a more middle class family.  They are the exception.  Barring some major personal difficulties they will respond well to the Youth Court process and normally I don’t see them again after their case finishes.

If National was actually committed to doing something about youth crime it would do something about our education system and work out why so many kids are failing.  It would do something about the housing crisis, the best way to ruin a child’s life is to give them substandard overcrowded housing, especially the education and health destroying type.

It would do something about poverty, make sure that kids could actually be properly fed before they go to school and untreated health conditions do not become life altering ones and that their parents did not have to work job after job just to make ends meet.

The last thing it should do is wait around for years while the problems festered, then think a short stint in the army waking up early and marching around with guns is somehow going to cure everything.

National.  Tough on crime. Totally oblivious to the solutions.

77 comments on “National promises to get tough on youth crime ”

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  1. Siobhan 1
    13 August 2017 at 1:27 pm

    “instant infringement notices” ….because that will really help the parents and the kids???.
    I’m not even sure where to start on the pointless vindictiveness of that policy.
    Not to mention, worst case scenario, is some poor runaway kid getting the cr@p beaten out of him/her for getting their parent into further soul destroying and ultimately futile strife with the authorities.
    And as a former foster parent I’m wondering exactly who will be inline for fines?? What would be the bar for parents being held responsible as opposed to foster parents?? How to deal with rogue foster parents who have a history of runners??…

  2. Draco T Bastard 2
    13 August 2017 at 1:33 pm

    National. Tough on crime. Totally oblivious to the solutions.

    QFT

    The solutions would mean high taxes upon the rich and they just won’t do that.

    • roy cartland 2.1
      13 August 2017 at 11:54 pm

      You mean “slightly higher taxes that they wouldn’t even notice”.

    • Eco 2.2
      14 August 2017 at 6:45 am

      Bill’s a idiot the big stick is so last century it won’t work on reducing crime another policy fail .
      There’s not much information On Gregg O’Connor just want a new government in

  3. Rob 3
    13 August 2017 at 2:06 pm

    I wonder if when they round these young people up they will then transport them in railway carriages like happened some year back?
    First they came for X then they came for you!

    • In Vino 3.1
      13 August 2017 at 4:23 pm

      Cattle-wagons – not carriages with comfortable seats! Harden up, man! Get some Guts!

  4. Acting up 4
    13 August 2017 at 2:17 pm

    Is this all that National can come up with? I suppose it might get a few votes from the crusty old “the army will sort them out” armchair general types.

    But further conveying the idea that young people in NZ are something to be feared and controlled – not embraced and supported.

    Simple minded solution from a simple minded party.

    • lprent 4.1
      13 August 2017 at 5:05 pm

      The only people who think that way are typically have never been in the armed forces. In other words dumbarse wannabe weapon wankers like Cameron Slater who like talking about it, but are usually far far away from any public service when the time comes to do anything. From what I have seen the National party support base is full of them.

      The military won’t want to expend any good resources on these kids because discipline in a professional army is internal discipline, and these kids simply won’t have any to build on.

      So instead we will get the deadwood from civvie street coming in to ‘train’ them (just like last time). They’re usually completely incompetent because they lack both skills and self-discipline (again – think of Cameron Slater as the type of trash this attracts) and are usually rejects from the armed forces or failed to get in.

      It disrupts the kids lives and does nothing to solve the problem. It has been tried before – by this government. It simply doesn’t work except on a very small minority, and as Mickey says, those are also the ones who respond to youth court.

      National policy makers are just idiots.

      • dukeofurl 4.1.1
        13 August 2017 at 5:40 pm

        Seems they may be thinking private contractors operating out of the Waiouru camp. The money being talked about is $30 mill over 4 years, with 50 youths per year. Thats $150K per person per year

      • Graeme 4.1.2
        13 August 2017 at 10:38 pm

        It’s weird that they aim this at the Cameron Slaters, rather than the centre voter who will most likely be repelled by it.

        Are the nats bleeding that badly that they have to try and retain the likes of Slater, or are they trying to stave of something internal?

        • mickysavage 4.1.2.1
          13 August 2017 at 11:10 pm

          Its rushed, its recycled and it is poorly thought through. My personal belief is the focus groups are saying youth crime is a problem especially in Auckland so they had to come up with something.

          • Exkiwiforces 4.1.2.1.1
            13 August 2017 at 11:42 pm

            No Micky, it’s show’s the muppets are in ass shitting mode which is above panic mode and one below headless chicken mode. In other words the muppets must do something for the sake of doing something.

            There campaign management team must be in panic/ stress mode ATM for this sort of piss poor/ crap policy to come out. Also it Sounds like they had too steal someone’s thunder today or yesterday and would that
            be Greens or NZF by any chance?

          • Graeme 4.1.2.1.2
            14 August 2017 at 7:14 am

            Well considering English has spent most of the last six months trying to out Labour Labour with first his budget and then a lot of the pre-election policy announcements, this one is a it strange. And with Amy Adams as spokesperson, she’s been projecting the caring persona and saying a few quite liberal things. All seems a bit odd.

            Are they loosing support from their core and funders by going too far into Labour territory? Policy for donations, or vice versa? Or an ideological shift / crisis within their caucus?

  5. Penny Bright 5
    13 August 2017 at 2:23 pm

    What are National going to do about old(er) ‘white collar criminals’?

    Are they even going to be charged – let alone prosecuted?

    Seriously?

    Penny Bright

    2017 Independent candidate for Tamaki.

    Exposing the $1.6 BILLION Tamaki ‘Regeneration’ – GENTRIFICATION $CAM

  6. Incognito 6
    13 August 2017 at 2:46 pm

    National might want to demonstrate that they are fair & balanced not simply picking on the ones that are already down but without a real choice and opportunity to get up and out of the hole they find themselves in. For example, they may want to more actively deal with truancy as there appears to be a rule for some but not for others.

    The Dutch are much more even-handed and serious with this:

    https://aabc.nl/the-dutch-school-attendance-law/

  7. ropata 7
    13 August 2017 at 2:48 pm

    National voters are happy to
    – push more people into poverty
    – grind beneficiaries into the dust
    – treat prisoners worse than dogs
    – punish + persecute disadvantaged youth
    – arm the police so that they can kill poor people more easily

    • Liberal Realist 7.1
      13 August 2017 at 5:29 pm

      National voters are happy to
      – push more people into poverty
      – grind beneficiaries into the dust
      – treat prisoners worse than dogs
      – punish + persecute disadvantaged youth
      – arm the police so that they can kill poor people more easily

      And right wing New Zealanders will cheer them on as they go about it.

      Let’s face it, National are the ‘class warfare’ party. Many of their policies are class warfare policies through and through.

  8. The Other Mike 8
    13 August 2017 at 3:08 pm

    More dog-whistle politics to the base. Same ol’ same ol’.

    I’m waiting for them to get tough on corporate tax avoidance. Oh, wait…

  9. bwaghorn 9
    13 August 2017 at 3:15 pm

    i have no problem with fining parents if their kids are roaming , should be up to 16 years old though. the rest is just nat horse shit

    • greywarshark 9.1
      13 August 2017 at 5:17 pm

      If older kids are roaming, they are out of their parents’ contrl. The literature I’ve seen says if you haven’t got a working family system by about 13 then you haven’t a hope.

      Under that parents and children can pull it together but could do with some workshopping. Trouble is if parents ignorantly feel that they can ask help from authority before their kid gets further along the path to lawbreaking they are likely to get the heavy hand of authority on them, not helping them.

      If the country can just help parents get their kids through their milestones growing up, then they won’t become millstones when they leave home. Good eh! And actually true. Again the literature tends to show that money spent in childhood getting appropriate advice, help, leads to lower expenditure later on. And a happier people in a happier country. That would be so good to have.

      Please don’t vote the Nats back in, show some spine will you? Just because the other parties won’t be able to solve all the problems, or your pet grouch, doesn’t mean that they shouldn’t have a chance to make some improvements. It is logical, surely you think you are logical, to change something that is not producing satisfactory country and social statistics. And we have an Opposition being
      paid, let them do some work. It will sharpen them up, and the present government as well. So two lots of pollies so sharp they will cut themselves, a change will serve us better outcomes in so many ways!

      • bwaghorn 9.1.1
        13 August 2017 at 7:14 pm

        ”Please don’t vote the Nats back in, ”

        hell will freeze 1st i assure you. but if my folks ( not bad just slack ones by the way) had got a nice fine the time the cops caught me roaming as a 15 year old and started making sure i was tucked up at night , i may not of spent 15 years wasted

        • greywarshark 9.1.1.1
          13 August 2017 at 8:17 pm

          bwaghorn
          You would probably have rebelled. One friend trying to be a good mother had one son climbing out of the window late at night and going down to the 24 hour garage and just chatting I think. A restless kid, grew up very nice. It is hard to corral teenagers once they get the bug to be out and about, finding out what’s going on.

          What I said before, that parents who haven’t established a disciplined authority by about 13 have a hard time trying to do so later. You think about your attitudes at the time. Was it that you questioned everything you were told, resented your father telling you what to do, ‘giving you jobs, finding fault, bossing you around,’ did you look down on your mother with a ‘What does she know’ attitude? Or was it that you wanted to do stuff, and would sneak out when you could without asking?

          Easy to blame Dad and Mum, they might have had their own personal difficulties then.

    • Patricia 9.2
      13 August 2017 at 5:45 pm

      bwaghorn – Good luck with dragging your 6 + foot son aged 15 out of bed and getting him down to school if he is not willing.

    • The Fairy Godmother 9.3
      13 August 2017 at 6:52 pm

      And if you are a solo parent off the benefit as pushed by winz into a shit job with shit hours so you can’t supervise your child then who is responsible then? Perhaps winz could be fined.

    • mpledger 9.4
      14 August 2017 at 10:19 am

      When there are over-crowded homes there is just no space for everyone to (comfortably) be there at once especially at weekends when people aren’t working or at school. So young people get pushed out into public spaces until it time to go to bed.

      Fining the parents won’t do anything to increase the space in their homes or decrease the energy and restlessness of young people.

  10. Tamati Tautuhi 10
    13 August 2017 at 3:28 pm

    Definitely dog whistling politics, National have run the Police Department down so much they do not even respond to calls relating to theft in South Auckland.

  11. Keith 11
    13 August 2017 at 3:44 pm

    The galling irony about National being the party that is tough on crime is the moment they were elected back in 2008, they set about cutting funding to everything associated with preventing and dealing with crime.

    The courts suffered funding cuts, legal aid suffered funding cuts, the police suffered funding cuts and frozen budgets so much so they have had to reinvent themselves into pseudo repealing some summary offence type acts and turning offending penalties into warnings. The $avings were immense, if not very short lived and very short term.

    They cut back on child youth services.

    And then they cut back on everything else that may well affect your average non voter and non National voter which has increased poverty.

    Along the way they introduced free for all immigration to cut down wage demands and to have a handy pool of compliant workers who took the place of people born here. All the while driving down incomes and increasing misery at the bottom end of society.

    And lets not get started about housing and the truly devastating effect it is having.

    It has taken less than 9 years for their masterful economic guidance to bear the fruit it always would, poisoned fruit, but it has now got out of hand. Aggravated Robberies are so common now shop keepers are uniting in their condemnation of the lack of law and order and are angry and potentially threatening to National.

    National and their voters have ensured though their tax cuts and then the austerity that they tried so hard to pretend they were not implementing, to pay for them, along with short term poll driven thinking that there is now a growing group of hard core – who gives a shit – youth offenders for whom the youth justice system does not work.

    It was all very predictable, but one thing is certain, stupid tried and failed military style boot camps are the most inept answer to a clueless government, ever. But National are hoping this hopeless gesture will look like they are doing something when they have no ideas left.

    • mickysavage 11.1
      13 August 2017 at 4:02 pm

      +1 Keith

    • Bob 11.2
      13 August 2017 at 5:41 pm

      National Govt have cut funding, to all the justice system, so they can give tax cuts to their overpaid mates.
      Their ignorance is deplorable, can’t wait until this election is over.

  12. mauī 12
    13 August 2017 at 3:45 pm

    What they need is rehabilitation, they’re kids after all, a lot from traumatic backgrounds I would guess too.

    One way to make their problems worse is to send them somewhere freezing cold and horrible like Waiouru, isolate them and get them to do shit they hate.

  13. Psych nurse 13
    13 August 2017 at 3:49 pm

    FFS have we not had enough of young people being abused while in state incareration.
    Why not bring back Borstals or stocks or send the lazy buggers up chimneys.How about transportation, the Auckland island is empty. Why not profiling while in pre school so no money is wasted on education, whoops thats probably an ACT policy.

  14. dv 14
    13 August 2017 at 3:51 pm

    So they are going to pick up 14 year old after midnight.

    Then what are they going to do with them?

    • Cinny 14.1
      13 August 2017 at 4:21 pm

      Good question, made me think about cops not being social workers, kids not at home because…who knows, kids getting chucked in the cells because of no foster etc care etc etc. Kids being dropped at home by the cops and getting a hell beating for it once the cops are gone. The whole system is broken and it’s gut wrenching.

      Some kids don’t have a chance, not even a chance to speak up, cause they are really going to want to tell the cops the truth about what’s happening at home, yeah sure they are. sarc.

      There’s just not enough support out there for the kids, all the kids, because all kids are vulnerable, often their circumstances are not their fault, but hell they are punished for it. Got to be a better way this idea of nationals aint it.

  15. Cinny 15
    13 August 2017 at 4:09 pm

    Nine years and all they can come up with is ‘boot camp’ for 50 people?

  16. Tamati Tautuhi 16
    13 August 2017 at 4:13 pm

    The Boot Camp on Great Barrier Island was a disaster with the kids supposedly digging their own graves ?

    Why don’t we look at some overseas models that work and start from there rather than going back to the Middle Ages ?

    • greywarshark 16.1
      13 August 2017 at 9:23 pm

      The Middle Ages that I am reading about seems a better place to live than the present. For all the advances we have made in science, there are backward steps in respect and a place for human beings.

      • lprent 16.1.1
        13 August 2017 at 9:47 pm

        Ummm.. I suspect that you are reading about the mythological middle ages where diseases weren’t rife and the median age of death was in the early-30s (counting all of the deaths in childhood in). Except of course when the really nasty plagues came through. It didn’t just decimate populations. For a few hundred years, it generally halved them unyil all who were left had retained some resistance.

        Not to mention those nasty wars that tended to not care about peasants so much as their tithes. But at least those weren’t the norsemen raiding on the coasts all the way down to the Med. Or the Franks doing doing their subtle but ‘necessary’ ethnic cleansing through the Slav lands.

        I could go on. But perhaps you were thinking of something else. The myth of the noble savage perhaps? 😈

        • greywarshark 16.1.1.1
          13 August 2017 at 10:13 pm

          Probably the histories I’ve been reading have picked on the better times. But I think you are compressing events that happened over centuries. If you list some of the unpleasant things that have hit us, they quickly mount up into an unpleasant thread.

          After all the modernisation we haven’t managed to make a good society where people can live in relative peace and wellbeing, I am not impressed. There are people now in old age who wish they could have died much earlier, though not as young as 30. Now you aren’t allowed to die when you are old and want to because it upsets the country’s statistics that they use for measuring each other. And stats are a sort of torture that were minimal in the Middle Ages.

          And attacks from across the water, well we have our neighbours arbitrarily putting us away on Manus Island. The Germans and Japanese got their subs etc down here in WW2. There was money printed all ready for the new opening. Today we have traders from foreign countries upsetting our economy and virtually stealing our assets.

          The plagues are still around, ready to go again. And the living standards are slipping to primitive in some places. Don’t be too cocky. I fear the AI invasion as a sort of Trojan Horse which is still remembered all these centuries later, by some anyway.

          • Stuart Munro 16.1.1.1.1
            14 August 2017 at 4:12 am

            There are indications that English cooking was much better a few hundred years back – the unimaginative stodge period seems to have been an austere response to French sophistication.

  17. Tautoko Mangō Mata 17
    13 August 2017 at 4:30 pm

    More evidence-free policy from National.
    Have a read : Dr Jess Berentson-Shaw vents her frustration on twitter.

    https://twitter.com/DrJessBerentson

    National’s Policy on Sugar tax…..ignore evidence, do nothing
    National’s Policy on discouraging water polluter …..ignore evidence, do nothing
    National’s Policy on fossil fuels…ignore evidence, allow new coal mines and oil exploration
    National’s Policy on housing crisis…ignore evidence, deny crisis
    National’s Policy on inequality….ignore evidence, lower taxes to increase inequality.
    National’s Policy on equal pay… make it <I<more difficult to achieve pay equity

    • Tautoko Mangō Mata 17.1
      13 August 2017 at 4:46 pm

      I think there should be instant fines given out to political parties for producing policies which fly against the evidence which has been researched fully.
      National are keen that every opposition policy is effectively costed and yet they come up with policies which have been discounted as being ineffective.

      Here’s a thought….
      Dan Taipua‏ @D__T_____

      When Nats proposed boot camps for teen offenders in 08 I did the maths and they could afford to buy each teen a Mercedes CLK not to crime

  18. greywarshark 18
    13 August 2017 at 4:53 pm

    Get tough on crime. Nats will help you keep hoold of your family jewels! The RW fallback, I hope they aren’t going to declare war on those feisty ….Islanders.

    There are sure to be some around, put your preferred name in the space.
    Somewhere they have mounted a legal attack trying to get a project onto a small community island of holiday homes, condo, resort etc. Some shark has got hold of a way in to a small island off NI. Bit small for a copy Falkland Islands though.
    Could that be worked up into an argument about rights? We are already sea bed mining off Taranaki aren’t we? Won that one, eh!

    I think there should be hobbit hole dug under the home of every Nat MP. With a listening device pushed down it. Then we can get the inside news before it happens. And an ‘illegal’ sale of square centimetres of their land sold to overseas investors with a phony title as a stake in this country. All in a little presentation box showing the full address with an invitation with each one to drop in and say hello and enjoy the famous NZ hospitality to overseas investors. Explain that we love them to visit us, and tell us all about the wonderful ways of the big wide world out there that we are too isolated and ignorant to have an understanding of, here in New Cowland.

  19. Pete 19
    13 August 2017 at 5:14 pm

    National. Tough on crime. Totally oblivious to the most common causes.

    • Tamati Tautuhi 19.1
      13 August 2017 at 9:24 pm

      Police do not respond to calls these days unless it is a murder ?

      Waste of time ringing them and the crims know it.

  20. rod 20
    13 August 2017 at 5:20 pm

    More Tory bullshit for the masses

  21. dukeofurl 21
    13 August 2017 at 5:44 pm

    “Serious young offenders will face army `boot camp’ training under a bill the Government intends introducing to Parliament on Wednesday.

    Prime Minister John Key announced the policy in January last year.

    Today he said the bill to implement it would contain a range of new measures aimed at dealing with the worst young offenders.

    “We need to deal more effectively with the growing group of young Kiwis who are seriously and repeatedly breaking the law,” he said.

    “These ticking time bombs need to be sent a message that their behaviour will not be tolerated.”

    The changes were aimed at the worst 1000 young offenders, Mr Key said.

    This was frigging 2009
    https://www.nbr.co.nz/article/boot-camp-bill-young-offenders-coming-parliament-53517

    Nationals new campaign promise- ‘Lets just redo the old shit’

  22. ScottGN 22
    13 August 2017 at 6:18 pm

    Looked pretty amateurish on Lloyd Burr’s piece on Newshub. English had to defer a question to Bennett about their previous failed attempt at this policy and their internal coms around turning up to get on thew 6 o’clock news and outdoing Jacinda on the crowd front were mentioned. They’re just not campaigning very well. Amy Adams said she sees too many youngsters out at 2am!

  23. Kat 23
    13 August 2017 at 6:41 pm

    ACT (association of crooks & thieves) has just “attacked Nationals law and order policy”. Does Joyce know about this “turmoil” in the right?

  24. Terry 24
    13 August 2017 at 7:18 pm

    Stupid idea, wont work, most of the kids will go backwards when they leave. Meanwhile highly paid & trained professional soldiers will be playing at baby sitting young very troubled youth. I have family in the army & they hate the idea.

    • greywarshark 24.1
      13 August 2017 at 8:25 pm

      Done it before. Didn’t work. The young ones are fitter that’s all.

      ‘Amy Adams said she sees too many youngsters out at 2am!’
      Shut the pubs earlier then!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
      Easy, but the government likes having the youngsters and alkies out till all hours with places open for the tourists to give the impression that we are gay things living in a wonderful world instead of living grey lives in cold houses garages cars bridges doorways etc. Or the wealthy are probably at home in their personal palaces and asleep by 11pm, or entertaining their friends there, not hanging out in the strip.

      Anybody can follow the news that there has been another assault at 3 or 4 in the morning. The government has been leading the way to degeneracy and wasted lives through alcohol since the year dot. Amy Adams should herself be home and in bed keeping up her strength to do something of value while she is a pollie with some power.

      • Tamati Tautuhi 24.1.1
        13 August 2017 at 9:27 pm

        Keeping the bars open generates greater profits for their mates in the booze industry.

  25. Kat 25
    13 August 2017 at 7:57 pm

    Reinstating the Forestry Dept or the MOW would go a long way to alleviate problems with youth, unemployment and those that could do with training and a hand up.

    But oh no that’s anti “free market” and farmers being the backbone of the country see that as a nod to communism. Better to destroy everything this country was built on in the name of greed and self interest.

    The National party and the saboteurs that infiltrated the Labour party in 84′ are the same oppressive, born to rule blue blooded bastards that my grand parents came here to get away from in 1864.

    • In Vino 25.1
      13 August 2017 at 8:01 pm

      Well said. But see who listens… Depressing!

    • Tamati Tautuhi 25.2
      13 August 2017 at 9:28 pm

      NZ is reverting back to a feudal society ?

    • Exkiwiforces 25.3
      13 August 2017 at 9:41 pm

      The only way this stupid proposal is going to work if there is a pathway to further training/ work aka, bring back the old apprentice scheme either in the private sector or the public sector as listed above Kat, or if that doesn’t work a 5yr retainer in the TF at their nearest depot and if all the above is not their cup of tea then 5yrs in either the Civil Defence or Doc’s High Country Fire Teams.

      Anything less is piss money down the dunny

  26. greywarshark 26
    13 August 2017 at 8:46 pm

    Officer Krupke will fix you dropouts!
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7TT4jnnWys

    Movie Lyrics | Stage Lyrics
    GEE, OFFICER KRUPKE
    ACTION
    Dear kindly Sergeant Krupke,
    You gotta understand,
    It’s just our bringin’ up-ke
    That gets us out of hand.
    Our mothers all are junkies,
    Our fathers all are drunks.
    Golly Moses, natcherly we’re punks!

    ACTION AND JETS
    Gee, Officer Krupke, we’re very upset;
    We never had the love that ev’ry child oughta get.
    We ain’t no delinquents,
    We’re misunderstood.
    Deep down inside us there is good!

    ACTION
    There is good!

    ALL
    There is good, there is good,
    There is untapped good!
    Like inside, the worst of us is good!

    SNOWBOY: (Spoken) That’s a touchin’ good story.
    ACTION: (Spoken) Lemme tell it to the world!
    SNOWBOY: Just tell it to the judge.

    ACTION
    Dear kindly Judge, your Honor,
    My parents treat me rough.
    With all their marijuana,
    They won’t give me a puff.
    They didn’t wanna have me,
    But somehow I was had.
    Leapin’ lizards! That’s why I’m so bad!

    DIESEL: (As Judge) Right!

    Officer Krupke, you’re really a square;
    This boy don’t need a judge, he needs an analyst’s care!
    It’s just his neurosis that oughta be curbed.
    He’s psychologic’ly disturbed!

    ACTION
    I’m disturbed!
    JETS
    We’re disturbed, we’re disturbed,
    We’re the most disturbed,
    Like we’re psychologic’ly disturbed.

    DIESEL: (Spoken, as Judge) In the opinion on this court, this child is depraved on account he ain’t had a normal home.
    ACTION: (Spoken) Hey, I’m depraved on account I’m deprived.
    DIESEL: So take him to a headshrinker.

    ACTION (Sings)
    My father is a bastard,
    My ma’s an S.O.B.
    My grandpa’s always plastered,
    My grandma pushes tea.
    My sister wears a mustache,
    My brother wears a dress.
    Goodness gracious, that’s why I’m a mess!

    A-RAB: (As Psychiatrist) Yes!
    Officer Krupke, you’re really a slob.
    This boy don’t need a doctor, just a good honest job.
    Society’s played him a terrible trick,
    And sociologic’ly he’s sick!

    ACTION
    I am sick!
    ALL
    We are sick, we are sick,
    We are sick, sick, sick,
    Like we’re sociologically sick!

    A-RAB: In my opinion, this child don’t need to have his head shrunk at all. Juvenile delinquency is purely a social disease!
    ACTION: Hey, I got a social disease!
    A-RAB: So take him to a social worker!

    ACTION
    Dear kindly social worker,
    They say go earn a buck.
    Like be a soda jerker,
    Which means like be a schumck.
    It’s not I’m anti-social,
    I’m only anti-work.
    Gloryosky! That’s why I’m a jerk!

    BABY JOHN: (As Female Social Worker)
    Eek!
    Officer Krupke, you’ve done it again.
    This boy don’t need a job, he needs a year in the pen.
    It ain’t just a question of misunderstood;
    Deep down inside him, he’s no good!

    ACTION
    I’m no good!
    ALL
    We’re no good, we’re no good!
    We’re no earthly good,
    Like the best of us is no damn good!

    DIESEL (As Judge)
    The trouble is he’s crazy.
    A-RAB (As Psychiatrist)
    The trouble is he drinks.
    BABY JOHN (As Female Social Worker)
    The trouble is he’s lazy.
    DIESEL
    The trouble is he stinks.
    A-RAB
    The trouble is he’s growing.
    BABY JOHN
    The trouble is he’s grown.
    ALL
    Krupke, we got troubles of our own!

    Gee, Officer Krupke,
    We’re down on our knees,
    ‘Cause no one wants a fellow with a social disease.
    Gee, Officer Krupke,
    What are we to do?
    Gee, Officer Krupke,
    Krup you!

    Music by Leonard Bernstein, lyrics by Stephen Sondheim.
    © 1956, 1957 Amberson Holdings LLC and Stephen Sondheim. Copyright renewed.
    Leonard Bernstein Music Publishing Company LLC, Publisher.

  27. AsleepWhileWalking 27
    13 August 2017 at 9:29 pm

    Sounds like imprisonment part of the policy breaches either Human Rights law or a U.N. Resolution or similar…idk just seems really wrong to jail minors like that (and fucking creepy too)

  28. NZJester 28
    13 August 2017 at 9:32 pm

    Typical National when they have no new policy. Shine up an old policy and claim it is new again. As their voters have such short term memories it tends to work quite well for them.

  29. Tamati Tautuhi 29
    13 August 2017 at 9:44 pm

    Bill English represents a dead man walking remember the last time he lead National to the polls = 23%.

    Key had charisma in spades and the NZ Public adored him especially his relationship with his best mate Ritchie and his free and easy manner at the BBQ Approach with the Boys.

  30. WILD KATIPO 30
    14 August 2017 at 12:53 am

    Just more temporal expediency to get themselves in govt using dog whistle style politics.

    A desperate last stand by a bunch of desperate liars.

    Begone with you.

  31. Eco maori 31
    14 August 2017 at 6:55 am

    Bill is a idiot the big stick is so last century there policy will do the opposite increase crime get 50 of there together and they teach each other the trix of crime. Not much info on Gregg O’Connor but he’s got be better than dairy dack Dunne

  32. Tanz 32
    14 August 2017 at 11:46 am

    So just let youth run free and wild, committing crimes, running with gangs, scaring young kids etc? Do nothing and watch as all this leads to jail sentences later. Whatever…typical leftie nonsense, as usual the left ignore personal responsibility.
    National will get votes over this, ever been to drunken downtown Auckland recently, or even outside the library in New Lynn? Both places to watch your back.

    • McFlock 32.1
      14 August 2017 at 11:53 am

      So the only alternative to “do something that doesn’t work” is to “do nothing”?

      You lot really are out of ideas…

  34. greywarshark 34
    14 August 2017 at 6:28 pm

    TOPS program:
    The Opportunities Party is proud to release our Postive Justice Policy.

    Prison isn’t the solution – If it were, we would know by now.

    New Zealand is stuck in a vicious cycle. Every year we lock up more people. That doesn’t tackle the causes of crime (which are more about social and economic conditions – addressed by some of our other policies). The evidence, in fact, suggests that prison is one of the significant causes of crime. Given that, it is just not smart for our criminal justice system to keep locking up more and more people

    You can read our policy here and you will find frequently asked questions here.

  35. Stuart Munro 35
    14 August 2017 at 6:34 pm

    It’s funny – I’d’ve thought Wayne, our resident Stalin lover, would have been here explaining why the NZulag was necessary for his party to survive – guess he’s hanging his head in shame in the privacy of his sinecure funded home.

  36. Eco maori 36
    14 August 2017 at 7:30 pm

    The reason there is so much youth crime is the government fault the government make the laws it’s not rocket science no food no money they go and steal

  37. Tanz 37
    15 August 2017 at 8:23 pm

    yeah everything is always the govts fault isn’t it, never theirs. It’s far worse than stealing food, it’s gang crime, violence, drugs.

    • lprent 37.1
      15 August 2017 at 8:26 pm

      The government is responsible for their citizens. That includes those who are transgressing the laws of the country and includes trying to ensure that fewer are doing it over time.

      Are you honestly trying to tell me that you think that any of these measures are going to do this? If so, explain how.

  38. Tanz 38
    15 August 2017 at 8:43 pm

    So, do nothing instead? Just leave the status quo as it is, which is out of control.
    Heard Bill English in the House stating that there is evidence that Boot Camps do work, and isn’t it better to give youth some structure and hope and education rather than the same old, which leads to the same hopeless outcomes? Or is your answer just free driving lessons and (leftist) civics?

    • One Anonymous Bloke 38.1
      15 August 2017 at 8:49 pm

      Can you actually read?

      Literally no-one is proposing to do nothing other than you. If English aligns with your ridiculous notions no wonder he’s going to lose.

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