The founder of one of the world's leading anti-gang initiatives has criticised the New Zealand Government's approach to the issue —encouraging a solution that addresses the root causes of gang membership.
Father Gregory Boyle founded Homeboy Industries, the largest gang rehabilitation programme in the world. About 10,000 people walk through the Los Angeles-based programme's doors each year.
"No treatment plan that is worthy can be born from a bad diagnosis," Boyle told Breakfast, while on a visit to New Zealand, this morning.
"Gang violence everywhere is about a lethal absence of hope.
"If you can infuse hope to young people for whom hope is foreign, then you really do quite a bit in terms of combating gang violence."
He said Homeboy Industries worked to help gang associates "re-imagine their lives".
"It's mainly the culture and the community of cherished belonging that really heals people, so that they can become sturdy and resilient and move beyond our place to productive lives," Boyle added.
"We do all the things that most places do, you know.
"Job training, and therapy, and curricular things, and classes, and anger management, all that stuff we do – but it's secondary to the culture and the sense of belonging that people are wanting to have happen in their lives.
"If the traumatised are more likely to cause trauma, then it has to be equally true that the cherished will be able to find their way to cherishing themselves and others."
Boyle recently received President Joe Biden's Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honour in the US, for his work in gang rehabilitation.
He was in New Zealand on the invitation of Te Pihopatanga o Aotearoa — the Māori arm of the Anglican church. On Thursday afternoon, he would be meeting and speaking with students at Hukarere Girls' College in Havelock North.
The Government's plan
On Breakfast, Boyle was asked whether he thought the New Zealand Government's plan – to ban gang patches and increase police powers to tackle gangs – was an effective strategy.
His answer was a firm "no".
"They're proven ineffective," Boyle said.
"It's a little bit about addressing the cough of a lung cancer patient.
"Well, I'd much rather address the lung cancer."
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