Why National’s Bootcamps are 10 times worse than you thought they were

Put aside the fact that there is no academic research to suggest these boot camps work.

Put aside the fact that National are just throwing this out to their angry voter rump who think public floggings should be brought back.

Put aside the fact that the first time National tried this 8 years ago it was a complete failure.

Put aside the fact that when this was done in the 1980s it resulted in grotesque abuse of the young people sent there.

Put all of that aside, the true horror is how National’s latest right wing neoliberal social experiment using big data is horribly distorting who should be getting sent to adult courts.

Let me explain.

This is aimed at 14 to 17 year olds, Bill English terms them ‘the worst of the worst’.

The Commissioner of Police will classify 14-17 year olds who break the law as “Young Serious Offenders’ if they reach a certain threshold and once they do, they are judged as adults.

The biggest change here isn’t the bootcamps, it’s redefining 14-17 year olds as adults who will face justice in an adult court. That means it is straight to adult Court regardless of your age or crime with no chance of bail or electronic monitoring.

Just consider the impact of that on your average 14, 15, 16 or 17 year old.

Are you appreciating the enormity of the change and why the bootcamps are just the distraction?

So how does one become classified as a YSO?

This is where it gets frightening.

These are the 3 conditions.

1 – Offending while in a  youth residence: remember many young people are referred to a youth residency because of family circumstance that leave them with very few options other than be moved to a residency.

2 – The law they break needs to have a 14 year imprisonment sentence. What does that include? Aggravated robbery and burglary. Remember this is being sold to us as a punishment for the ‘worst of the worst’, well when you are an angry teen who has been moved to a youth residency with other angry teens who go out and commit a stupid burglary, you are 2/3 of the way to being sent to an adult court and prison.

3 – Here is the horror of the big data being used to direct social policy. The final condition to be included as to whether you are judged as an adult is an equation used by the Police that if adding up to 70 crosses the final threshold.

How is that score calculated?

The Police Youth Offender Risk Screening Tool (YORST) is a risk assessment test consisting of  14 questions each worth between 0-5 points.

Of the 14, these 5 are the most concerning…

• If you are not attending school,or in work – 5 points.
• If you or your family have ever had an intervention from CYFS – 4 or 5 points.
• If your family has a significant history of notified (not proved) family violence callouts – 5 points.
• If a family member has recent criminal history, 4 points for a parent, 5 points for a sibling.
• Where you live, 5 points if you are in a motor park, 4 points if your school is a decile 1

..so a 14, 15, 16 or 17 year old is going to face adult charges in an adult court using a 14 factor equation, 5 of which the young person in question has no control over whatsoever.

Folks, this is fucking madness!

You can’t determine children should face the full force of the adult law based on being in a youth residency, committing a burglary and some bullshit arbitrary calculation by the cops using big data predictive morality.

If a young person commits a murder or serious sexual assault, they automatically go to the adult court, so the ‘worst of the worst’ line is just spin. The truth is that this is simply a way of channeling more damaged kids straight into prison while appearing tough on crime to National’s angry electorate.

We know  our justice system is racist, this new policy is weighted heavily against Maori who would fail many of the set criteria being used. All this will do is put even more young Maori in prison.

We should be horrified at policy so openly racist.

The only winner here are the private prisons.