Despite a slough of opposing evidence, including from within his own party, National leader Christopher Luxon is not budging on his military camp plans to combat youth crime.
Speaking with Q+A this morning, Luxon made clear that the camps would be reserved for youth offenders that commit more violent or destructive crimes.
"For the youth offenders that we have, the system by and large works well...but for the most serious repeat youth offenders, we need to take a different set of actions and have some tool sets."
The previous National government introduced boot camps for young criminals in 2008, however an analysis found that 85-87% of those in the programme went on to reoffend within two years.
Luxon defended the camps, saying that they produced a 50-65% reduction in "violent offending, theft and burglary" and that he would extend the programme from 12 weeks to 12 months.
A 2016 report on the same camps found that 80% of participants were young Māori or Pasifika, Q+A host Jack Tame noting that "they weren't boot camps, they were brown camps".
Luxon dodged questions on how diverse his updated military camps would be, saying that it was not the primary concern.
"That's not the issue, the issue is about serious youth offenders and making sure we have a tool set that's available to help those young people change."
A 2018 report from Sir Peter Gluckman, then Sir John Key's chief science advisor, said that harsh punishments do little to stop young people from reoffending and that boot camps "do not work".
"He said there were aspects of it that actually worked quite well [such as] the 50-65% reduction in violent offending," Luxon said after briefly speaking with Gluckman last week.
"That's a programme from 2008...we've taken that on board and said that we can build a longer programme with more intensive support and rehabilitation."
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