Scheme to cut youth crime 'goes nowhere'

A highly touted youth crime prevention scheme has been hampered by disorganisation, with some participants not bothering to attend meetings, and has failed to make inroads into youth crime rates, a damning Justice Ministry report says.

One team member described the teams as a "sinking yacht" which "doesn't seem to be going anywhere", and only half of the participants rated the system as effective.

Only 16 per cent of team members had attended every meeting, 60 per cent claiming to have made it to most meetings, and the remaining 24 per cent attending half or less.

Launched by the Government with much fanfare in 2002, the youth offending team system was set up in 32 regions.

Comprising staff from four key government departments - police, education, health and child, youth and family - the teams were designed to work together to reduce teen crime.

Justice Minister Phil Goff said youth offending was a critical area of concern and the scheme aimed to "intervene as early as possible".

Five years later, youth offending rates remained virtually the same, with a quarter of all those arrested in 2006 aged between 17 and 20.

In 2002 youth offending represented about 23 per cent of all crime.

The Government now concedes the initiative has been troubled.

Justice Minister Annette King acknowledged there had been some negative feedback, and said there were some areas for improvement.

"It's like starting anything from scratch ... you don't turn round issues like youth offending in two years. [The report shows] how it works and what we need to do to make [the teams] work better."

Ms King said high-performing teams, such as in South Auckland and Hamilton, should be held up as examples.

"Success breeds success. We need to share the successes of a place like Hamilton. We need to make sure all the tools work as well as possible."

Wellington youth offending team chairman Clive Puna said it had been a struggle to unite four separate agencies with different priorities and commitments.

Mr Puna, who is Wellington police's iwi liaison officer, said the key to ensuring the team's success was finding an issue relevant to all the departments involved.

The Wellington group had selected truancy as a main area of focus, but it took several meetings to even come to that point, he said.

"We believe that if we can tackle truancy very early, [youth] won't look to youth gangs as a form of mentoring."

However, the concept has been criticised by outspoken former prison boss and social commentator Celia Lashlie, who branded it "lip service". "It's a superficial response to what is societal issue."

She said the current system failed to engage and work with parents and their children from a younger age.

Ms Lashlie said she was not surprised by the poor attendance rates, given the high workloads of those involved.

"You have a harassed police sergeant or a harassed social worker. Do they go to a meeting or do they go talk to little Johnny and his mother about the trouble he's been getting into?"

- © Fairfax NZ News