"Reckless, heinous and lazy."
That's how the Green Party has described the Government's policy to introduce military-style boot camps for young offenders.
Children's Minister Karen Chhour today announced the Government would begin a pilot for the system, set to be up and running by the middle of the year.
To be led by Oranga Tamariki, Chhour said it was part of the Government's 100 day plan and aimed to create more tools to respond to the most serious and persistent young offenders.
This afternoon, Greens co-leader Marama Davidson said it had been proven "time and time again" military-style academies did not resolve the drivers of crime, but also more harmful than good by institutionalising young people in the justice system.
"It does not reduce reoffending."
She said it was more effective to deal with youth offenders through community, youth and social services who understood the issues at play and took a "strength" and relationship-based approach.
She said such programmes were effective in reducing reoffending and ensured young people went on to have good lives.
Davidson said the Government was "completely and utterly wrong and they know it".
"They know that the evidence has never ever supported their policy position. What they are instead doing is dog whistling to fear and ignorance."
"[It's] reckless, heinous and lazy."
Te Pāti Māori co-leader Rawiri Waititi said the policy was a "return to the 60s and 70s".
"This is how gangs were created, through boot camps and borstals and boys' homes ... they want to get rid of the gangs but I think they're going to create them."
Co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer said it showed the Government had "no imagination".
"It's just a really slack Government with no solutions."
She said Oranga Tamariki was the "last place and the last agency, of all the Government agencies, I would ever entrust to look after the wellbeing of rangatahi".
A damning Ombudsman report into Oranga Tamariki, released last month, called for a wholesale overhaul of the organisation.
"I regret to say I cannot yet provide reassurance that Oranga Tamariki's practices and processes are consistently operating as they ought to," the report's author, Chief Ombudsman Peter Boshier, wrote.
A 1News poll in December 2022 found a majority of Kiwi voters supported military boot camps for serious youth offenders.
Chhour earlier said the "military-style academy" programme would have a military-style component as well as a "rehabilitative and trauma-informed care approach to help these young people turn their lives around and reduce their risk of reoffending".
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