KEY POINTS:
New Zealand's youngest killer has embraced religion and Maori culture as he prepares to be released from prison this year, people who have worked with him behind bars say.
This week, the Parole Board said Bailey Kurariki was an articulate, intelligent and mature young man who was determined to turn his life around.
That was in stark contrast to its report last year, when it said he was at "high risk" of reoffending.
Despite its refusal to grant parole last July, the board said Kurariki was committed to his parole conditions, had a job to start and was looking forward to associating with people from the church on his release.
"He has changed for the better and is saying these things not simply to achieve parole, but for his life."
A Prison Fellowship member who has been supporting Kurariki in prison for the past two years said the teenager was "not a threat to public safety - he's not psychotic, he's not a Burton or a Bell".
The son of an alcoholic father, Kurariki had been "blacklisted" by seven schools before his mother, Lorraine West, who was raising seven children after a string of failed relationships, began home-schooling him in Papakura.
He had been caught shoplifting so often that most shops in Papakura had banned him.
At the time of the killing of pizza delivery man Michael Choy, he had absconded from Child, Youth and Family care. He was described by a police senior sergeant as an arrogant and defiant child.
Kurariki spent the first two years of his sentence in Child, Youth and Family residential centres because he was too young for prison. In August 2004, aged 15 and rather bigger, he was transferred to the youth unit at Hawkes Bay Prison.
Kurariki was also involved in lots of fights in the early years, including with prison officers.
"He understood that there was a pecking order [in the youth unit] and wanted to be top of it, having been involved in a high-profile murder which he thought was big-time," the Prison Fellowship member said
But three years ago he began going to church and was baptised around May last year, which "has really helped him to mature".
He was then transferred to the Maori focus unit in Hawkes Bay prison where he took an interest in kapa haka and tikanga Maori, and older Maori men took him in hand "in a positive way".
He learned skills in the forestry industry and over a period of about two years, Kurariki grew up.
"By the end of last year we were hearing from prison officers that they were extremely impressed with him, and they are not fooled easily.
"They observed him in unguarded as well as guarded moments. There's a lot of support for Bailey - they've seen him change."
Prison Fellowship director Kim Workman said Kurariki had been rated by the Corrections Department "at the lowest possible level of risk".
"Those who are close to him in the prison, and those from outside the prison who have supported him, are unanimous in their view that he is very unlikely to reoffend on release."
Canterbury University criminologist Dr Greg Newbold said Maori focus units helped to give young people focus and a sense of identity but the positive effects were not always long-lasting.
"It's generally the case that people come out of those kinds of units absolutely positive and feeling great with terrific ideas, but when they come out in the real world the influence of their experiences in the focus units easily evaporates."
Dr Newbold said in Bailey's case it was "a great big question mark, a dirty big guess" as to whether he would reoffend, and statistics were not encouraging.
He said 90 per cent of under-20-year-olds released from prison reoffended within five years.
- Elizabeth Binning
