Tent prisons touted for youth crims

CHERIE TAYLOR | 28th March 2008

Mobile tent prisons and chain gangs could be the answer to curtailing youth crime in the Central North Island, community leaders say.

Prompted by concern over escalating violence, Taupo's mayor and the Sensible Sentencing Trust have called a public meeting to discuss ideas for dealing with youth crime. They say the answer could lie in American-style tent prisons and "mayor's chain gangs" to provide short, sharp punishments aimed at deterring young people from re-offending.

In Arizona the mobile prisons - a series of tents within a fenced area - are run by city councils and young offenders are chained together to work cleaning up streets and highways.

In the Central North Island recently teenagers as young as 14 have been charged with serious crimes, including aggravated robbery, indecent assault and three murders. Taupo leaders want tougher punishments but Rotorua community leaders say the key is increased funding for existing programmes.



Sensible Sentencing Trust spokesman Garth McVicar said the justice system was too soft on young criminals.

"Enough is enough. We need the tools to be able to deal with these kids so they don't become career criminals. [Family Group Conferences] are not working. We have about 500 to 600 kids in our communities who are ticking time bombs. We are unable to deal with them adequately. We need to look at [the American] model," he said.

Taupo mayor Rick Cooper said Monday's meeting would discuss ideas to reduce youth crime with a view to lobbying the Government for change.

"We want to know how the residents and ratepayers want to deal with this."

Successive governments had replaced the likes of borstal and boys and girls' homes with systems that did not necessarily involve real punishment, he said.

"A lot of our young people start out with tagging and then it escalates and they move on to more serious crime. We need to take the cottonwool off and start dealing with them more seriously."

Rotorua's Nicholas Mitchell, 20, has just finished his second two-year stint in prison for burglary and said it was not a deterrent.

"It's useless. Find out the root of their problems and then make them do a three-year apprenticeship so they have something to look forward to, rather than locking them up and expecting they are going to stay out of trouble."

Rotorua deputy mayor Trevor Maxwell said many community groups were making progress with youth and the Youth Justice Centre to be built in Rotorua would also help. He did not think tent prisons would be wanted. "Locking people up isn't the answer. They come out bitter. We have to try and break the cycle," he said. "We need to look at the positive things happening with our youth. Agencies in our region working with them are achieving."

Rotorua family support worker Hone Edwards from Te Roopu A Iwi o Te Arawa Charitable Trust said what was needed was more funding for community groups tackling youth crime. Many currently received "a pittance" with most of their funding used up in administration costs, he said.

"If we want to help these kids, we have to address the root problems and what is going on within the family."



Monday's meeting in Taupo is at 5.30pm at the Great Lake Centre.