National are the worst re-offenders in youth crime

The worst re-offenders in youth crime policy are the National Party, who are once again re-heating their decade old tried-and-failed “boot camp” slogan for young offenders, ACT leader David Seymour says.

“National first announced boot camps to keep the worst teenage offenders on the straight and narrow almost ten years ago during the 2008 election campaign,” Mr Seymour said. “Those boot camps failed because National doesn’t want to commit to addressing youth crime beyond slogans.

“If National was really serious, it would make assignment to these boot camps mandatory, not discretionary. If National was really serious about keeping at risk youth off the streets, it would extend ACT’s charter schools programme, the only schools where attendance is a required target for the administrators and teachers. If National was really serious about breaking the cycle of poverty, they would continue to reform welfare rather than let one child in five grow up without a parent in work.

“Better yet, Bill English and Amy Adams should pay close attention to ACT’s upcoming youth crime policy announcement.

“If National can’t even break their own cycle of behaviour, how can they hope to break the cycle of failed families and youth offenders who cause so much damage to New Zealand society?

“No party is tougher on crime than ACT, but we also recognise the need to be smarter on crime as well. ACT’s policy of incentivising prisoners and youth offenders to learn to read and get driver’s licences in prison has been welcomed by the Howard League for Penal Reform and the Sensible Sentencing Trust as a realistic and just way to decrease re-offending and address the causes of crime.

“In the past year National abandoned its targets for reducing re-offending in prisons after its complete failure to cut re-offending. Now National is also giving up on the re-offenders of the future.”

ENDS

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