Waatea News Column: Let’s do something meaningful to prevent youth crime

1. Wards of the state are looked after and cared for in state funded welfare until they hit 18 and then they are just pushed out.

   Not any longer. Young people who are ward of the state can choose to remain supported both financially and emotionally until they are 25 through the transition support arm of Oranga Tamariki that has been up and running for the last few years.

   It used to be when the rangatahi turned 17 they were discharged. The reality is that some do not choose to be supported by OT transition and find support elsewhere – sometimes in gangs. The special psychological characteristics (history of trauma) of many children in care make them more likely to turn to AOD and gang/prison (insitutionalised) lifestyles. It used to be heart breaking as a social worker when one of your children turned 17 – other times it was a god-send.

   • Finally! A Bob with intelligence. Please keep posting.

   • Nice post

2. Can we please look to the excellent research by the Dunedin Multidisciplinary Study re what might help these young people have better lives?

3. It’s genuinely great that you want to address the problem, but how?

   The facts: By the time these young men are 18 we’ve already lost most of them. They’ve been abused since they were babies. Many have Fetal Alcohol Syndrome or were meth babies. They’ve all done poorly in school, and many are illiterate or innumerate. Their nutrition is poor, and their teeth are rotting in their heads. Childhood abuse has developed sociopathic tendencies in many.

   First, we have to we have understand the cause(s) of the problem before considering solutions. Luckily a vast amount of research has been undertaken in past years to understand the causes and they have mostly come to the conclusion that nuclear family breakdown and solo mothers on long term welfare are the source of much of violent, dysfunctional youth. Fix that and you fix a constellation of associated problems too. Mental health, education, prison numbers etc.

   When I was a kid there were almost no children born out of wedlock and divorce was both difficult and quite rare among the working class. Young women having accidental pregnancies HAD to get married, which wasn’t ideal, but it certainly acted as a disincentive to getting pregnant. Welfare changed all that and now it’s got so bad in the USA that the terms ‘mother’ and ‘father’ aren’t used much in the black community. Instead, they use ‘baby mama’ and ‘baby daddy’. How fucked up is that! According to google, 67% of black kids are now born to solo mothers. It will be far higher in the ghettos.

   This knowledge doesn’t sit well with social liberals and feminists who have for decades pushed through changes to law and welfare entitlement in order to diminish the role of men, but it’s the truth. In a tough neighbourhood it takes both a woman and a man to bring up a child and keep them on the straight & narrow.

   Conclusion: We need to change the incentives to keep mums and dads together.

   • “When I was a kid there were almost no children born out of wedlock” That’s because it was treated as morally shameful, and hidden. The young women were “sent up north” for a while and their babies were taken from them, for adoption.

   • “When I was a kid there were almost no children born out of wedlock”
     Yes there were but it was treated as immoral and shameful and hidden. The young women were “sent up north for a while” and their babies adopted out.

   • Andrew, there is some merit in what you say although there’s more to it than that, in my experience of a broken home, state ward and later a single co-parent with a successful enough career and a well-rounded grown up kid. Co-parenting of kids when partnerships break up can be very successful, though it does take two willing participants and isn’t necessarily a safe option for some. Our kids would benefit from dedicated adults able to offer themselves as long term “buddies” to kids, to spend time with doing fun activities, talking and listening etc. I had someone like that as a teenager and beyond (via DSW, they called them trackers back then). I wonder sometimes how my life may have been different had it not been for that man, and one other female foster parent I had age 15/16 before I went flatting (never saw a social worker since). Many of the kids I knew back then (my friends), did indeed go on to prison etc. A couple got done for murder, one was murdered etc. I was given a glimpse into other (healthy) families and adults at a crucial time in my life and it made all the difference for me I think. Don’t misunderstand as it has been a difficult road and I still have some issues, but for me the takeaway was that quality time and genuine healthy love can make the world of difference to many young people’s lives. Our community and political “leaders” need to stop with the demonizing of troubled kids with troubled parents as it serves no healthy purpose. Each one of us can contribute to reducing the harm caused by showing genuine empathy and compassion (if nothing else) and changing the narrative that these young people are “other”. They are us. Our communities are only as strong as our weakest among us. It is up to the stronger members to lift them up at times. A hand up, not necessarily a hand out (though this is necessary as well at times). Our young women also need practical advice about the real nature of young men, and the repeated positive messages that they are loveable and deserve to be respected. Our young men also need this and they need to have it drilled into them that being with a young woman is a privilege that must be respected. Young fathers can and often do just walk away. That’s not really an option for young mothers (mothers of any age). Men do need to change here, and many have/are from decades ago. Time, love, empathy and compassion really can go a long way.

     • I know what you’re saying Sinic because I was in very similar circumstances but in the UK. It was largely by chance I suppose that I went one way and some other kids in my area went the other because I got into a fair bit of trouble as a kid. Maybe that’s why I’m so aware of the issue now.

       If we want to improve our batting average with youth, we need to use social welfare to incentivize the right behaviours. Dump the ideology of both parties and do the right thing.

4. Not just youth committing these crimes, often the youth are recruited by older criminals! The alleged dairy murderer was a deportee from Australia and not a youth. Too much emphasis in NZ on the ‘demographic’ and not enough on the actual problem to be solved for everyone!

   Also woke reports that fail to get the real picture and actually are deceptive are part of NZ’s big problem and why with large amounts of money being thrown around (generally along ‘identity’ lines) to solve things, things are actually getting worse.

   For example housing. This reports apparently blames

   “The report acknowledged the historic decisions by previous governments that had contributed to the system – including the depletion of public housing stock in the 1990s and 2010s, that has led to a shortfall of decent homes.”

   Ok, so apparently all stopped in 2010????? What about the demand led by poverty visas being given out constantly for people on study visas and $43k jobs allowed to bring in their families, while knowing that they will be under the poverty line in NZ and charities/taxpayers will have to provide housing for significantly more people on low wages?

   New Zealand’s emergency housing system breaches human rights, inquiry finds
   https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/dec/14/new-zealands-emergency-housing-system-breaches-human-rights-inquiry-finds

   So nothing about NZ’s mass immigration of mostly low and no income people and families then, (More than 200,000 applications this year alone after the pandemic, with 50% of those applying family members who are highly likely to need social services) even though we have a health, housing, education and social welfare crisis for current citizens who should be getting the limited help available in NZ, not diluting it.

   Nothing about Kiwibuild, that gave away state land to private interests.

   Nothing from the lefties (Marama in charge of ministry of homelessness) worried about government allowing emergency housing that does not have to fall under the tenancy tribunal system for years now.

   It’s the blind leading the blind in NZ, or rather the woke leading the charge to make rental conditions worse than they used to be, with smaller rooms, no tenancy tribunal oversight and pushing people into cramped slums instead of the system we used to have that was far superior to renters.

   Not just housing, we see that money is just being thrown around to anybody with an ‘identity’ that the woke want, and the money just being wasted and creamed off as money earmarked to solve important problems is squandered.

   Covid 19 coronavirus: $1.59m vaccination campaign happened after almost everyone was vaccinated
   https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/covid-19-coronavirus-159m-vaccination-campaign-happened-after-almost-everyone-was-vaccinated/4M5A67KYX5CJ7ELPFHDKZEKEHU/

   Chris Keall: The Government’s Digital Council dies, as it was born, in high farce
   https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/chris-keall-the-governments-digital-council-dies-as-it-was-born-in-high-farce/QBNKHOMDRREGBFUH6AGGCXB4LM/

   Artists money is being siphoned off and never gets to source… more and more layers, government funding their agencies aka creative NZ who give funding to another layer of bureaucracy, not actual artists, and the lack of trickle down and compromised layers continues.

   Controversial Decision – Creative NZ Defends We Are Indigo/Toi ki Tua Choice
   https://thebigidea.nz/stories/cnz-defends-toi-ki-tua-we-are-indigo-partnership

   People are angry because government money is given to more and more gate keepers or just some identity tick, who then don’t deliver while others who need the funding and do deliver, get nothing.

   Trickle down, doesn’t work. And Labour have given the money to gate keepers and the stupid who are incapable of any delivery apart from marketing spin and woke reports.

5. Another expensive report about the mall terrorist. Nothing reported much in the media about how he came as a teen on a study visa and was allowed to quit and live in NZ without being deported. The woke even stopped him leaving when he wanted to.

   NZ has more interest in protecting the rights of terrorists to come here, (Tarrant hand picked NZ as it was so easy) than stopping them and removing them before they kill and maim people here.

   NZ youth are sidelined while the government reports want to give more and more money to youth coming to NZ with extremists views. We already have extreme views and lifestyles in NZ around Kiwi youth (aka gangs) but nothing real is being done to help those Kiwi kids growing up in that environment – actually it is worse now as they are forced to live with gangs and addicted people in emergency accomodation.

   It’s all woke this and that with piles of money but no real help for anybody especially kids in need. No wonder they are all doing whatever they feel like now.

   OT can save the circus kids from China, but not bother too much with NZ kids whose parents are in jail and get murdered and abused.

   • SNZ, I definitely agree with all your points. It is the blind leading the blind (by the looks of it). Thanks for articulating it all

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