Borrows Chester: Children Young Persons and Their Families (Youth Courts Jurisdiction and Orders) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Borrows Chester: Children Young Persons and Their Families (Youth Courts Jurisdiction and Orders) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:660;Page:9009] 
CHESTER BORROWS (National—Whanganui) 
: 
 It is good to take a little bit of a stocktake in respect of the Children Young Persons and Their Families (Youth Courts Jurisdiction and Orders) Amendment Bill as to where members on both sides of the Committee sit in relation to not only the things they disagree with but also the things on which they agree. 
The last Government produced a Children Young Persons and Their Families Amendment Bill. National agreed with a number of things within that bill and it did not agree with some other things and the same applies vice versa in respect of this bill. We know that members on both sides of the Committee agree that supervision with activity and supervision with residence orders are not long enough to do any good. We find that people who are ordered to attend supervision with residence courses end up doing several of them back-to-back. They are released too soon for the same reasons that the Minister for Social Development and Employment outlined: they take 8 weeks or so to get to court and by that time given the time they have already served they have only 3 weeks to go and they are out before there is any real intervention. While they are on remand the staff involved in looking after those facilities are able to insist on compliance in only so many things. So in actual fact what is intended to be say a 3-month course ends up being 3 weeks in relation to what can actually be done. Both Labour and National agree that these courses should be extended out. Labour’s bill said so and our bill says so so there is no real scrap there. 
The next thing is the argument about what works and what does not work. We know that what does not work is locking people up and doing nothing with them for a period of time. In the extension of supervision with activity under Labour’s bill and National’s bill the deal was that we would do more with the kids while we had them to make those things worthwhile. Labour agreed with that and National agrees with that. When the Principal Youth Court Judge Andrew Becroft came before the Social Services Committee he agreed that the courses out in the community that were working—for instance supervision with activity—and were very good were those that had some what we call wraparound things: they addressed drugs and alcohol they addressed violence they addressed literacy and numeracy while they could and they addressed family relationships. They intervened with family relationships and made sure that they brought family into the programmes. 
A prime example of that wraparound approach is a programme in my electorate START Taranaki. When the Hon Ruth Dyson was the Minister for Social Development and Employment she agreed with that programme. She extended its funding and enabled it to go on to produce far better results. We know from actual measures that 65 percent of the young people who attended that course never offended again. They were checked up on and we knew whether they were offending again. These young people were monitored and had mentors placed with them and they were there because they were ordered to be there. Yes they had to consent. However both Labour and National agreed in both bills that the consent provision for community-based sentences should be removed as a right from young people. Members on both sides of the Committee agree that young people should be compelled to attend these courses—it was in Labour’s bill and in our bill. So let us not squabble over that matter because it is actually common ground. 
Going back to START Taranaki we found that 65 percent of the young people who attended and completed the course—that is virtually everybody according to the numbers that were produced—never offended again; 15 percent of those who left the course within a month committed a dumb crime at a lesser level than the one they had gone there for and after that never offended again; and 20 percent went on to have a pretty horrific record of offending. But an 80 percent relative success rate out of all those attending is bloody good. What should we do? Members on both sides of the Committee agree that we should replicate that programme around the country. So whether there is supervision with residence or supervision with activity both sides in this debate agree that we should extend those programmes and that we should make sure that those programmes are more than just having kids either walk around the bush and then do menial tasks or sit in a cell; we should do something with those young people while we can. 
We also agree that there should be an extended period of supervision after these courses finish. The argument we are having now is about what level of close monitoring or intensive monitoring there should be. 
Another huge area of argument is about what we do with 12 and 13-year-olds. Initially we had a response from the Principal Youth Court Judge who said we are not talking about a whole truckload of 12 and 13-year-olds; we are talking about a relatively small group of 12 and 13-year-olds who need to be dealt with because they are offending at a far more sophisticated level. By that we mean that it is not a huge escalation in numbers; it is a huge escalation in the seriousness of violent offences committed. And we are seeing a change in the trend across gender: we are seeing young girls offending far more violently than they have in the past and we have to do something about it. 
National’s response to that was to put those offending in front of the Youth Court because that court can give a wider range of orders and offer a wider range of resolutions. The Principal Youth Court Judge said that we were wrong and what we really needed to do was move the powers of the Family Court into the Youth Court because the Youth Court resolutions were too short. But we found that we could not do that within the scope of this legislation. The other thing he said when we looked at moving those powers was that it would be quite good if the Family Court could exercise some of the provisions that are available only within the Youth Court jurisdiction. There was not a hell of a lot of disagreement across the parties in respect of that change either but when we wanted to do it what did we find? The members who were sitting on the select committee will know that we found that we were not able to do it under this legislation. So the Minister for Social Development and Employment has asked to look at what we can do with Family Court jurisdiction further down the track. 
The big point Andrew Becroft made was that the real detraction from putting 12 and 13-year-olds before the Family Court was the slow and cumbersome way that the Family Court worked and he asked us to fix it. He asked us to make it more streamlined. We said OK and asked him about having the opportunity to bring 12 and 13-year-olds to the Youth Court where the Youth Court judge would act as a person on a drafting gate to decide whether the level of offending of the 12 and 13-year-olds should be dealt with back in the Family Court or should be moved to the Youth Court. He said that that was a way of streamlining the system and that it would add confidence to those practitioners using it. He agreed with that process. 
The other big thing that we have had huge debate about across the parties is what the Government calls Fresh Start camps and others prefer to call boot camps. 
Hon Annette King 
: The Prime Minister. 
CHESTER BORROWS 
: Let us have a wee listen for a minute. We said then that we know what works. We want to take supervision with activity combine it with supervision with residence and take account of the security needs of the high-end offenders who will be part of that programme. But we want to include in Fresh Start which members on the other side of the Chamber call boot camps— 
Hon Annette King 
: The Prime Minister. 
CHESTER BORROWS 
: I concede that the Prime Minister on one occasion referred to them as boot camps. I will concede that just to get those members to shut up for a minute and listen to the argument. 
The point is that we amalgamate supervision with activity with supervision with residence. A whole lot of other stuff in there bears absolutely no resemblance at all to corrective training which is what boot camps were way back in those members’ day and in my day—back in the 1980s. That is what boot camps were. We have described Fresh Start camps and I am sure members are enlightened to the fact that they bear no resemblance at all to boot camps. Even Principal Youth Court Judge Becroft agreed that the Fresh Start programme that we have outlined bears no resemblance to corrective training and no resemblance to what he called boot camps when he condemned them. 
I thank members for listening. I look forward to further calls on this debate.