KEY POINTS:
New Zealand's treatment programmes for adolescent sex offenders are among the best in the world at reducing future sex offending.
A study has found that only 2 per cent out of 682 adolescents who completed the programmes in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch between 1996 and 2004 committed sexual crimes again during the study period.
This was a better outcome than in 11 out of 13 similar studies of adolescent sex offender programmes inAustralia and North America. Only two North American studies didbetter, with zero reoffending.
But 38 per cent of the New Zealand adolescents committed non-sexual crimes after finishing the sex-offenders' programmes.
The study, led by Auckland University psychologist Ian Lambie, recommends that the three programmes should consider a "broader treatment approach" to tackle the whole complex of problems that drive young people into trouble, rather than focusing purely on sexual offending.
The study is the largest in the world to date on sexual reoffending by teenagers. Dr Lambie said its key finding was that New Zealand's system of treating young sexual offenders in the community, rather than jailing them, works.
"The basic finding is that it's worth funding programmes and supporting them to develop to a standard where the outcomes are as good as, if not better than, a significant number of programmes in the US which incarcerate these youths," he said.
"We are treating them in more humane ways and getting as good, if not better, results."
Another Auckland University study in October found that New Zealand had the world's highest rate of reported childhood sexual abuse, with one in every four women in Auckland and the northern Waikato being sexually abused before the age of 15.
A quarter of the perpetrators were brothers or cousins, in line with previous studies showing that about a quarter of childhood sexual abuse is committed by teenagers.
The director of Auckland's Safe Network, Robert Ford, who runs the biggest of the country's three sex-offender programmes, said adolescent offending was often "hands-off" crime such as voyeurism and exhibitionism, and was usually part of broader "problematic family circumstances".
"Sex is only a small part of the offending," he said.
"There will be a number of different ways of acting out - maybe difficulties at school, overly aggressive. Most of them are clearly troubled and trying to express their inner turmoil or trouble in some way. They are trying to solve something."
Thirty to 40 per cent of the youths who come to Safe have been sexually abused themselves.
"Typically there are some difficulties in the relationship with the parents and family," said Mr Ford.
"It could be a number of things. It could be cold and detached parents - a typical middle-class family.
"Obviously difficult family relationships can happen in any socioeconomic group or ethnic group, but they may be exacerbated by unemployment, low education or drugs and alcohol, so you tend to get a slightly higher level in lower socio-economic groups."
Both Maori and European youngsters are over-represented in Safe's current adolescent programme, making up 23 per cent and 58 per cent of the 60 youths respectively, compared with 15 per cent and 54 per cent of the total Auckland teenage population.
On a national basis, the study found that almost a third of teenagers on the three sex-offender programmes were Maori, and that Maori parents felt that Maori therapists were able to "engage" the youngsters better by incorporating Maori language, greetings, prayers and other customs, such as using haka at camps.
www.cyf.govt.nz/4771.htm
STARTING EARLY
* Teenagers commit a quarter of all sexual abuse of children.
* Programmes in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch treated about 700 teenage sex offenders between 1996 and 2004.
* Only 2 per cent committed sexual crimes again after finishing the programmes.
* But 38 per cent committed non-sexual crimes by 2004.
