Teen’s six days in cell ‘not good enough’
The Ministry for Children has acknowledged it fell short in a case where a young Nelson offender was kept in police cells for nearly a week.
Nelson lawyers say youth offenders are too often forced to stay police custody because of a shortage of beds in youth justice residences.
Nelson youth advocate and lawyer John Sandston says his
15-year-old client spent six nights in the Nelson police cells because there were no other options for him.
Sandston said when his 15-yearold client first came before the Nelson court last Thursday, a Justice of the Peace rightly denied him bail due to the young man’s record of offending and history of absconding.
There were no beds available in any Oranga Tamariki youth justice residences.
Sandston said his client reappeared in court each day in the hope a bed would have become available.
After six days, Sandston said the judge said it was ‘‘untenable’’ to keep the young man in police custody any longer, and granted ‘‘supported bail’’, organised by a social worker.
‘‘That’s where you have bail with some quite extensive conditions, sort of like a wrap-around, where the marae provides a whole lot of services in terms of activities for the kid and also support, and it has a curfew et cetera, so it’s more than just conventional bail,’’ he said.
When the option was first presented to the court on Friday, the judge turned it down due to risks associated, but by Tuesday was forced to reconsider out of necessity.
‘‘Things had changed where the judge had to balance the issue of public safety but also the safety of the young kid.’’
So far there had been no issues with the young man’s supported bail, Sandston said.
Oranga Tamariki’s deputy chief executive, youth justice services Allan Boreham said they aimed to ensure young people didn’t have to stay in cells for more than 24 hours.
The Nelson case was ‘‘disappointing’’, and ‘‘sharpened their resolve’’ to make a difference.
‘‘Every one case where a young person stays [in the cells] for more than 24 hours means we haven’t done well enough and we need to keep working towards our final outcome which is that no young people need to be in cells more than 24 hours,’’ Boreham said.
Since Oranga Tamariki was established – replacing the former Child, Youth and Family in 2017 – Boreham said they’d increased the number of beds in facilities by nearly a quarter and were working to increase capacity further.
There are five secure facilities for youth in New Zealand, in South Auckland, Rotorua, Palmerston North, Christchurch and Dunedin, with a total of 156 beds across the country.
Occupancy at residences varied depending on daily court proceedings, but had been at 96 per cent in the calendar year to-date.
There were some ‘‘quite remote’’ places that could pose challenges when it came to transporting getting them to facilities and they were looking at increasing capacity in places including the top of the south, as well as Taranaki, Gisborne, and the Far North.
He said the upcoming change to youth court legislation in 2019, to include more 17-year-olds, would see another 1600 young people referred to Oranga Tamariki, in addition to the 2300 they dealt with currently.
‘‘We will need to build extra capacity and capability for them, and we’ve started that work already.’’
Sandston said teenage offenders having to spend more time in police cells should not be happening.
‘‘Plainly, if there are fluctuations you’ve got to have enough beds available. Sometimes you do have spikes in crime or spikes of people who, for all sorts of reasons, have to be in a residence.’’
Sandston said there were times when a young person deemed a risk to themselves or others had to be kept in police custody overnight, particularly if flights to regions with residences weren’t available, but it wasn’t good enough to have it going on ‘‘day after day’’.
He said the issue had come up every year, and under both governments, and should have been sorted by now.
‘‘It’s not like it happened last week for the first time’’.
His main concern was many young offenders were vulnerable, had mental health issues, and putting them in cells could cause more problems.