Evidence-Based Success Ignored as Government Pushes Punitive Youth Policies

We must decide: do we punish suffering children, or build a justice system that follows evidence and works to reduce harm?

This week the Government restated their intention to move forward with a suite of harsher more punitive measures for children coming into conflict with the law. The policies were met by concern and critique from academics and experts who advocate and care for children, including the Chief Children’s Commissioner Dr Claire Achmad who voiced concern that the Government’s approach was a breach of children’s rights.

The Prime Minister was asked to comment on the Children’s Commissioners concerns and responded by stating that he didn’t care about “…what you say about whether it does or doesn't work. We can have that intellectual conversation all day long, but we are, dammit, going to try something different because we cannot carry on getting the results that we've been getting." Earlier he had stated that he was committed to doing things differently, “Because just look at the last six years – do you think that worked out great for us?"

I think it’s important to take a moment to name and reframe an aspect of this conversation surrounding children in conflict with the law.

As justification for pushing forward with the Government’s approach, the Prime Minister has repeatedly claimed that we have tried the approach advocated for by experts in Youth Development, Child Psychology and Children’s Rights.

Now of course he goes on to claim that (despite an overall reduction in youth crime over the last decade) taking an evidence-based approach has failed.

Now, there is an aspect to the Prime Minister’s statement which is correct. We do have many evidence-based initiatives which we have tried and tested, what he neglects to mention, is that overall, they are working.

For example, the Government has acknowledged the success of the Fast Track program initiated by the last Government, which responded to community calls for a more collaborative, wrap around approach within Government agencies.

The Fast Track has enabled Government agencies to work with local communities to respond swiftly to the needs of young people and their whānau, breaking down silos and allowing community and Government to work together to support the entire whānau in order to respond to what is happening for those children.

This has meant that Oranga Tamariki, Kāinga Ora, MSD, the police and local community agencies have been empowered to get around the table together and respond swiftly to the real needs those whānau are experiencing, whether that’s addressing housing insecurity, ensuring whānau are getting their appropriate benefit entitlements, or providing more support for mum and dad by connecting the whānau into services that can benefit and tautoko them.

With a 76% success rate, the program has seen success in reducing reoffending, and the current Government has committed to continuing it.

More evidence of success within evidence-based approaches is hinted at when we review the Youth Justice Indicators report which has been tracking the data over the last decade. The report shows that over the last decade we’ve been seeing a consistent decline in youth crime.

In the latest report, we did see a slight spike, however that is not surprising when we examine the context and remember that many of the driving factors that lead to children coming into conflict with the law were exacerbated over the Covid years (the last report covered the 2022-23 period).

Yet, overall, youth crime has still been tracking down.

Some of the things we have been doing over this period is to focus on keeping children in their communities and out of residences, wrapping around restorative and therapeutic responses, and working directly with their whānau and communities through the Youth Courts and our Family Group Conferences.

Now the Prime Minister is correct that there is a small group of these children who current approaches do not seem to be working for. When you dig into that, you find it is because of the severity and complexity of their situations.

They will be children in communities where their whānau are also struggling, unwell, and dealing with the traumatic impact of poverty, homelessness, mental illness and social exclusion. Some of these kids are experiencing homelessness and poverty themselves, are severely unwell, are being abused, and are in environment’s where they are not safe or supported.

The evidence would say you wrap around the support, ensure they and their whānau have stable housing, good quality food on the table, access to health care, and strong community and mentors around them to give them all the support they need.

The problem is that we don’t always have access to the resources to respond to these complex needs. And because of this, the environment remains unchanged, and factors contributing to the behaviour are not addressed.

And to the Prime Minister’s point, here’s the rub. We continue to do the same thing and expect a different result. And the thing in this case is failing to address the large systemic issues which are impacting the lives of these children. Internationally it is recognized that one of the biggest factors to children coming into conflict with the law is poverty and the environment those children are living in. And yet, we continue to do what we have always done. We largely focus our attention on punishing suffering children, while refusing to address the factors that are contributing the harm we are all concerned about.

The opportunity here is for the Prime Minister to do exactly what he has said he wants to do.

To do something different. Take what we already know is working, lean into the evidence, and get serious about responding.

As the Prime Minister has said, its a small number of children we are talking about, we know who these kids are, we know their whānau, we know their communities, we could choose to “take a social investment approach”, target funding, end the poverty and homelessness these whānau are enduring, support these whānau, and resource their communities to hold and heal their own.

And when things go wrong, when, because of the decades of neglect and underinvestment of our communities, children slip through the cracks, we could again follow the evidence, ensure that we provide localized, therapeutic interventions and supports, and provide children and their whānau with the care and love they need to heal.

Yet, this would require more than a quick fix. It would require a dedication to name and deal with the big issues of economic justice, to go hard on poverty, to ensure that homelessness becomes an unacceptable reality for us to leave our whānau to endure. It would require us to do something different.

This debate is not about victim’s vs children who have caused harm. It’s a debate about who we are as a society and how we treat our most vulnerable kids.

The choice before us is simple. Do we choose to build a justice system that punishes suffering children, or do we choose to build a system that leans into the evidence, one that is equipped to care for our children, to prevent harm, to empower children to take responsibility, that is enabled to restore them back to us so that they – and we – can thrive together.  

The choice is in our hands.

A.J. Hendry is a Youth Development Worker and rangatahi advocate, working in the Youth Housing and Homelessness space. He leads and co-founded Kick Back, a youth development organizations responding to youth homelessness and is also an advocate working collectively to end youth homelessness in Aotearoa. He is also the curator and creator of When Lambs Are Silent.