Morgan Slams National’s Military Bootcamp for Youth Offenders

Opportunities Party Leader Dr Gareth Morgan has slammed National’s brutal boot camp solution for recidivist youth offenders as a great leap backwards for the criminal justice system.

Every piece of credible research in this field tells us that further traumatising young people in attempt to break their spirit, and bully them into less anti-social behaviour, achieves exactly the opposite outcome.

Recent media coverage including the excellent piece by the Sunday programme just a week ago, proves that such programmes have a high probability of leading to abuse and further trauma for young people who are already at the margins of society, most often as a result of complex factors well beyond their own control.

A military style re-education programme staffed by those with little knowledge of how to reach and repair damaged young people has zero chance of success.

It is disappointing that in the heat of an election campaign National has chosen to promote a policy not based on evidence but designed to appeal to the worst and least generous of human emotions, fear and retribution.

The Opportunities Party will release its criminal justice policy at 6am tomorrow.

It will be the polar opposite of National’s cruel and outdated approach and includes major new initiatives to address youth offending, and drastically reduce the record number of kiwis incarcerated by the state.

Gareth Morgan
Leader, The Opportunities Party

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