Photo: RNZ / Samuel Rillstone
A mistake in the government's crime announcement on Monday happened because there were originally two options on the table, Prime Minister Chris Hipkins says.
Hipkins announced a new offence for adults inciting youth to commit crime but his office issued a correction less than two hours later, saying the policy would instead make it an aggravating factor in sentencing, not a new offence.
Hipkins told Morning Report the government was originally considering targeting gang members through a new offence and details of the two options were conflated in the preparation for his announcement.
"Cabinet considered two options, one was a more targeted provision that would only apply to gang members, so that would have been a new offence, the other was to apply it more broadly, to anybody who is commissioning children to undertake criminal activity, and that ... that would make an aggravating factor and so we chose the latter option.
"Unfortunately in the preparation of my speaking notes and my press statement that was conflated and I didn't pick that up in the preparation for my press conference so yes, I absolutely accept responsibility for that, that was a mistake."
The rest of the statement still absolutely holds, he said.
"Fundamentally the overall objective remains that we're toughening the consequences for people who are commissioning young people to commit crime.
"There was a balancing of law here in looking at the existing provisions and how to strengthen them and we ultimately went with the option that would apply more broadly..."
One of the major changes for young people would be around the family group conferences, Hipkins said.
"Young people, many of them typically won't end up in a formal court setting, they'll end up in the family court and at the moment family court can do things like recommending programmes for them, recommending they take part in some restorative justice like removing graffiti and so on.
"We're changing the rules to basically allow the family court to compel them to do that, so they can be required to that."
Putting children in jail would likely lead them to a lifetime of criminal behaviour, he said.
"We've got to turn these kids around, we've got to get them on track, we've got to break the cycle - whatever analogy that you want to use to describe it. These are children that we're talking about, I don't want to write them off completely but I do want them to know that there is consequences for what they've been doing."
The government is "pivoting at the last moment" after being focused on rehabilitation and reducing the prison population, Paul Goldsmith says. Photo: RNZ / Dom Thomas
"The government's obviously scrambling to look like they're doing something firmer on law and order," National Party justice spokesperson Paul Goldsmith told Morning Report.
There needed to be more robust consequences for young people committing crime, Goldsmith said.
National has proposed bringing in a new serious offender category for 10 to 17 year olds , he said.
"Everybody recognises that most young people who go into the youth justice system make one mistake and they don't want to be seen again but there is that small group of serious repeat offenders and they've got to have more serious consequences."
Goldsmith said older young people generally lead the ram raids that younger children take part in "and that's why we're bringing in the bootcamp as an option and also more serious angle bracelets or whatever for all that group".
"The problem at the moment is really they're just seeing that they can get away with it and if you talk to retailers, that's the thing that frustrates them the most."
It was not petty offending but "very, very serious crime" that needed a serious consequence, he said.
Goldsmith said truancy, emergency housing and mental health were other factors in crime committed by young people.
Healing and restoration needed - advocate
Voice Of the Young and Care-Experienced youth participation advisor Mary-Lynn Huxford told Morning Report she was really concerned that "we're still not upholding UNCRC, the rights of the child that we as a country ratified".
"I'm really happy to see that we're not pushing youth boot camps," Huxford said.
"Any legislation or policy that we push through for our young people needs to have young people at the centre and I'm not seeing that in this ... we're talking about 10 year olds going to court and I've got issue with that - we've got issue with that."
Huxford said all young people deserve to live with mana and communities needed to come together to help heal young people.
"Absolutely correct in terms of the problem but the solution needs to be about healing and restoration."
She liked the suggestion children take part in community service but there needed to be wrap around support for them, she said.
