National, Act criticise youth offender supports

WELLINGTON: Expanded programmes for young people at risk of being caught in a cycle of crime is just ‘‘windowdressing’’ from a softoncrime government, the Opposition says.

Police Minister Chris Hipkins and Social Development Minister Carmel Sepuloni made a second announcement yesterday as part of a suite the Government hopes will curb a spate of ramraids.

Children under 14 years old who were caught ramraiding would be given intensive support to steer them away from a life of crime, and towards study and work, they said.

It followed an announcement on Monday afternoon of legislative amendments giving police broader powers to seize assets.

National Party leader Christopher Luxon said in Christchurch yesterday afternoon that more was needed in terms of serious consequences for serious repeat offenders.

‘‘We see a lot of family conferences — we think there should be a lot less of that.

‘‘There’s a lot of opportunity around home detention, there’s a lot of opportunities around community service and frankly for the most serious repeat offenders — of which at least 25% of ramraids are done by repeat offenders — we’ve got youth residential facilities as well and so we should be using and making sure we’ve got appropriate consequences in place,’’ Mr Luxon said.

‘‘To be honest, it feels like a lot of windowdressing and I’m not quite exactly sure what they have proposed in great detail.’’

More support should be offered to ramraid and burglary victims, he said.

Act New Zealand leader David Seymour suggested young offenders should be monitored with ankle bracelets.

‘‘There needs to be an escalation pathway for young offenders that sends them a message early.

‘‘At the moment, they get softly softly till suddenly they turn 18, they’re in the criminal justice system and things get very serious with little warning . . .

‘‘We should have instant practical penalties as an infringement notice regime for shoplifting; if they ramraid we should put ankle bracelets on them.’’

That would keep tabs on their location, show whether they were attending school and ensure they could not break curfew, he said.

‘‘There’s always a pathway back to redemption — it’s not permanent.

‘‘Unless we start giving short, sharp signals to young people going off the rails we end up leaving it too late — they turn 18; they end up going to real jail.’’

The Government’s response had come six months too late, he said. — RNZ