The Government is planning laws that, in their current guise, would create a Young Serious Offender (YSO) category where a Youth Court judge could decide to send some of these offenders to a military-style academy.
A document from the Children’s Minister — obtained by the Green Party this week — admits giving these military-style academy providers the power to use force against children may be seen as “increasing the potential risk of abuse in custody”.
The leaked paper said powers to use force and detain children “may be viewed as increasing the potential risk of abuse in custody, particularly in light of historic[al] abuse experienced by children and young people in similar programmes reported in the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care report”.
“These powers will also be held by individuals and organisations, and not attached to places of detention. In New Zealand, only law enforcement personnel currently hold such powers,” it said.
But it said not providing these powers would mean staff outside the residential setting “would be exposed to legal risk if they tried to prevent a young person from absconding or from harming themselves or harming another person”.
“Given this risk, I consider that clear authority is needed,” the paper said.
The paper shows the Government intends to introduce the legislation next month, but “due to the time available, comprehensive safeguards are not outlined in the primary legislation”.
Instead, safeguards “to ensure these powers are used safely and reasonably” will have to be introduced through a regulatory framework. The paper said these regulations will be required before the bill can be brought into operation.
Children’s Commissioner Dr Claire Achmad wants more details about the powers as they need “to be given extremely careful and well-thought-through consideration from a children’s rights perspective”.
It’s difficult to disagree with this argument.
Children’s Minister Karen Chhour, when responding to Herald questions, would not address the risks of providing use-of-force powers.
She wouldn’t answer questions about the risks of providing the powers, why she didn’t consult with the Children’s Commissioner about them, or how the bootcamps differ to previous programmes.
The Government needs to hold youth offenders to account — and try to ensure they don’t re-offend.
But Chhour needs to front up and explain how bootcamps will help achieve this, while also protecting young people from abuse.
If she doesn’t it’s hard for the public to have confidence that the mistakes of the past won’t be repeated.
