This submission sets out the position of Te Kāhui o Ināia Tonu Nei Charitable Trust on the proposed Oranga Tamariki (Responding to Serious Youth Offending) Amendment Bill.
Ināia Tonu Nei hold firm in opposing this Bill based on the following key points:
• The Bill is punitive in nature and does not seek to address the actual causes of youth crime, instead it unfairly punishes tamariki and rangatahi;
• The Bill takes an incremental approach to improving the youth (in)justice system and disregards the recommendations from the Royal Commission of Inquiry into historical abuse in State care and in the care of faith-based institutions’ final report that a transformational shift must occur to keep tamariki and rangatahi safe and well; and
• Young Serious Offender declarations will put tamariki and rangatahi Māori into a more punitive environment, that will not deal with the underlying factors of their offending and put them at risk of abuse and neglect. Domestic and international evidence including from the recent Abuse in Care Royal Commission shows that institutional care environments including military-style academies for tamariki and rangatahi have never worked, and in fact, were and are the most violent of care settings.