Sending out an SOS – Youth Justice needs the Community

His Honour Judge A J Becroft
Principal Youth Court Judge, New Zealand Youth Court
Te Kaiwhakawa Matua o Te Kooti Taiohi o Aotearoa

Working Together – A Practical Conference on Offending by Young People in New Zealand

Wellington, New Zealand
26 November 2007

Contents

A. New Zealand's Place in the Youth Justice World: Some Reflections and Challenges for us All

B. "Collaboration"/"Partnership" between Government and Non-Government and Community Organisations

C. General Reflections on the State of our Collaboration

D. The Necessity for Collaboration — Practically and Theoretically

1. The practical imperative for collaboration/working together:

(a) The case of Bailey Junior Kurariki

(b) 2 recent psychological reports

2. The theoretical imperative for collaboration/working together

E. Putting Youth Justice Collaboration under the microscope

1. Police Diversion and Alternative Action

2. The Intention to Charge Family Group Conference

3. Family Group Conferences and the Community

4. Community Monitoring of FGC Plans

5. More Community Programmes (Health, Education, Dependency and Specific Learning Difficulties) — and Quality Assessment

(a) The need for community based programmes

(b) What characterises effective programmes?

(c) The need for a quality assessment of all programmes!

6. Better Use of Supervision and Supervision with Activity Orders

7. "Segregation" and "Aggregation" — A Warning

8. The Christchurch Youth Drug Court — Interagency Cooperation at its best

9. National Structural Issues: Youth Offending Teams

F. One Final Challenge ... Partnership with Tangata Whenua

G. Conclusion

A. New Zealand's Place in the Youth Justice World: Some Reflections and Challenges for us All[1]

I have been in my present role as Principal Youth Court Judge for over six years. I have visited almost every Youth Court in the country. It has been a wonderful privilege to travel the length of New Zealand and to witness the dedicated service of so many committed individuals, both government and non-government. The contribution you make to our youth justice system is enormous. I am proud to be part of such a system. It is humbling to see the daily efforts of so many. I want to pay tribute to you all.

For instance I think of a police youth aid constable, who, realising that there was no transport arranged for a young offender to begin a rehabilitation course 200 kilometres away, dropped everything and drove him there the same day — a 6 hour round trip. Or the CYFS social worker who worked most of Saturday and some of Sunday to ensure that a young offender could be released from police cell confinement and placed in a community remand facility 2 hours drive away. Or the vision of a health professional/youth worker to establish a "one stop shop" for at risk young people — against all odds and despite a lack of support from relevant local body agencies. These, and the unstinting efforts of so many like them, are the tip of the iceberg of our thriving youth justice system.

I have travelled not only throughout New Zealand but have also been so privileged to visit youth justice systems around the world. I have been welcomed at a youth justice residential facility in Belfast and talked with young offenders caught up in societal violence beyond their control. I have sat in the Hammersmith Youth Court in London and realised that Ahmed in that Court is essentially the same boy as Hemi or Tony in the Lower Hutt Youth Court. I have met with a juvenile judge in his Court in San Francisco, struggling to bring a youth specific approach amidst imperatives to adopt a "cut down, adult court" model. I have spent a morning at a "Boys' Home" in Singapore and realised afresh that serious young male offenders are the same the world over. I have visited (and winced with Fijian officials at the standards of) a boys detention facility in Suva. I have met with Youth Justice Board of England and Wales and observed an English Youth Offending Team first hand and been so impressed by the "standards-based" assessment process. And closer to home, I have been stopped in my tracks by the magnificent facilities available to the Childrens' Court of Victoria, Australia, which by recent statutory amendment, now includes seventeen year olds within its processes.

But through it all, and despite the significant improvements we could still make, I have become convinced that we have here in New Zealand the basis of a world class youth justice system. So often this is what others have told me. It is a reassuring and sobering message. We need to realise that we are the envy of most other countries. The general principles and philosophy of our system are sound. Our three-fold emphasis on:

• community based diversion, if at all possible, from charging and court proceedings;
• community based interventions with victim/family based decision making through the mechanism of the Family Group Conference; and,
• an avoidance on institutionalised custodial responses, viewed as an absolute last resort in my view, places us in the vanguard of international youth justice systems.

Yet with this realisation and the privilege of international exposure, comes a challenge. We must be vigilant to keep abreast of the best overseas research and practice. We must seek constant improvement and ongoing refinement of our practice. And we must ensure that our own country, still so misinformed, knows the good news about our system and that the rest of the world is given the best of what we have learnt. If we are to be a world leading system, there is a responsibility to provide leadership and information. Here are just some challenges that arise.

1. Youth offending and the media

Superficial and incomplete media reporting of youth offending provides a distorted picture. In youth justice, as in many areas of justice reporting by the media, comment is provided by a narrow range of "experts" who often have little understanding of our system, and have their own agendas. Conflict between opposing views is "manufactured" and heightened. There seems little attempt to analyse the real issues. Do not misunderstand me. We must welcome debate. And in a democratic society, the views of all groups must be heard. But the youth justice debate is dominated by one or two extreme voices. Perhaps there is an obligation on all of us in the youth justice system to provide accurate information that balances the picture and makes a real contribution to the debate. We need our own public advocates to counter misinformed criticism.

For instance, the recent release of stand alone youth offending statistics, (something we have seeking for years) was an opportunity missed. What was reported, correctly, was that youth violence was increasing. We were not told:-

• the rates of young offenders apprehended by the Police were the lowest in ten years;
• the rates of young offenders apprehended for property offences and burglary significantly declined in the last years;
• that apprehensions for violent offending, curiously, significantly increased only in the last 2 years;
• that most of the increase in apprehensions for violent offending was for common assault and at the lower end of violent offences;
• that apprehensions for violent offences in the 10-13 cohort was the only cohort where violent apprehensions are dropping;
• that every other cohort in the population showed increased apprehension rates for violent offending;
• that the cohort which showed the biggest increase for violent offence apprehensions was the 51 -99 age group (!); and,
• that while it is important to understand the causes of increases in apprehension rates for youth violence, an equally important question is why, as a society, we seem to be a more violent community?

Time and time again, it seems that the media prefer to report the clash of extreme views and a superficial, stereotypical understanding of the youth justice system.

2. Family Group Conferences

Too often FGCs are misunderstood or criticised as a soft, weak, "liberal" response — a self contained and ineffective intervention in their own right. Yet the truth is quite different. When organised well, FGCs have in them the seeds of genius; as a decision making mechanism involving victims, young offenders and their families they can be without parallel. The positive stories must be told. Here is a challenge to CYFS. Why not publish, as a matter of urgency a book entitled "100 Outstanding Family Group Conferences"? This could educate NZ and the world. After seventeen years of operation, there are some wonderful stories to be told.

3. Police Youth Aid Diversion.

Similarly, the outstanding successes of the Police Youth Aid diversionary measures should be documented. Why not a volume entitled "25 Diversionary Programmes That Work"? New Zealand, and the rest of the world, need to hear these stories.

4. Training Manuals.

The rest of the world is desperate for good information. After seventeen years, is it not time for Police youth Aid and CYFS to have available readily usable training manuals for specialist police officers dealing with young people and for facilitators, desperate for information as to how to run youth justice Family Group Conferences?

These are just some challenges for us all. If we have a truly world leading system we must respond to them.

B. "Collaboration"/"Partnership" between Government and Non-Government and Community Organisations

In 2004 my paper to this conference presented 10 challenges facing Youth Justice in New Zealand[2]. This year I would like to revisit a number of those challenges and view them through the lens of the partnership between government agencies and the community. This is a partnership upon which the success of our youth justice system ultimately depends.

Sometimes this partnership is expressed as being between "professional agencies" and the "the community". This distinction is inappropriate and denigrates those involved in the nongovernment sector. Most community youth justice organisations take a very professional and rigorous approach to their work with young people. They are often staffed by highly trained, professionally qualified people. This paper will use the terminology — "government agencies" on the one hand, and "non-government"/"community" on the other. The term government agencies will include Police, Child Youth and Family Services, Education, and Health Ministries etc., and their employees. Non-government/"community" groups and their employees are sometimes also known as the "voluntary sector", which refers to types of organisations, not about volunteering[3]. Community groups will be self governing, not for profit (that is they do not return profits to owners or directors) and institutionally separate from government. While they may receive funding from Government, they do not exercise government authority.

The Children, Young Persons and Their Families Act 1989 (CYPFA) promoted family-based decision making in the context of community-based solutions. Amongst other things, one aim was to make a stand against a perceived "take over" of youth justice by the professional sector, especially the government sector, and to rebalance the delivery of youth justice services in favour of the community. Somewhere along the way since 1989, we have blurred our focus on this fundamental kaupapa. Certainly, government departments, and government run institutions such as youth justice residences have an important part to play in delivering youth justice services in New Zealand. But in my view we seem to be witnessing a trend toward greater dependence on government agencies, and less nurturing of, and genuine partnership with, community providers. This trend is worrying given my contention that non-government/community agencies should have the major responsibility for the coal face delivery of youth justice interventions wherever possible.

It is of course invidious, in this context, to talk of primacy in a partnership. I want to avoid any such unhelpful distinction. The suggestion of a hierarchy of importance will get in the way of effective collaboration. Government and non-government agencies will usually have different, but equally important roles. Government agencies, for instance, will always have responsibility for national policy directions, research and funding. Sometimes also they will have responsibility for the delivery of interventions — eg supervision with residence orders. But in terms of delivery of effective interventions to young offenders and their wider families, the community must surely have the major responsibility. For one thing, government agencies simply will not have the personnel or resources to deliver appropriate interventions to the at least ten thousand young offenders annually detected by Police. Also, community groups are likely to have a greater stake in successful interventions because: they are members of the same community as young offenders and their families; they are able to develop a better understanding of the causes of offending, and, while government employees may come and go, community groups, in one form or another, are likely to be more enduring.

The non-government/community sector will not be able to do its job, unless the government agencies actively grow and support community-based rehabilitative solutions by making sure community actors are:

Well educated
Well financed
Well promoted
Well managed
Well represented
Well consulted, and
Well monitored

While the focus of this paper is on promoting the role of the community sector in the delivery of youth justice services, the title of this conference, and the practical and theoretical advantages of "working together" mean that the language of collaboration is used often in the following pages. In a speech to last month's Wanganui conference, "Collaboration for Success", I emphasised that collaboration between youth justice players is both a practical and theoretical imperative. Delivery of youth justice services that live up to the promise of the 1989 law reform, and continue to lead the world, can only be achieved through effective partnerships and collaboration.

This paper begins by discussing first the practical, then the theoretical aspects of collaboration. It then goes on to examine issues of community involvement in 9 key areas of youth justice including:

Police diversion and alternative action
Intention to charge Family Group Conferences
FGCs and the community
Community monitoring of the FGC plan
Community health, education, learning and dependency programmes and the need for quality assessment of all programmes
Youth Court Orders - Supervision and Supervision with Activity, and
Youth Justice Residences
The Youth Drug Court, in Christchurch
Youth Offending Teams (YOTs)

Finally there is a challenge as to whether partnership with tangata whenua is as pervasive and effective as, arguably, it should be.

And in conclusion, there is a discussion of the place of the community in the delivery of justice generally.

C. General Reflections on the State of our Collaboration

New Zealand is recognised overseas as a world leader in its development of a "new paradigm" for youth justice. But our track record in "collaborating" to implement this new paradigm has been patchy. After the halcyon days following the introduction of the 1989 Children, Young Persons and their Families Act, generally, sub-standard collaborative practice has lagged behind innovative theory.

Beginning in the mid 1990s and at least until the advent of the 2002 Youth Offending Strategy, collaboration between key government agencies involved in youth justice was inadequate. Pleasingly, this decline has been arrested. "Intra-government" collaboration has significantly improved and there are a number of impressive collaborative efforts between government agencies.

However, collaboration between government agencies and the community/volunteer sector (much harder to achieve) has been disappointing. Yet both these forms of collaboration are non-negotiable components of the effective delivery of youth justice. They are vital if we are to reduce re-offending and to give centrality to strengthening families.

Significantly, the need for collaboration is increasingly being recognised within New Zealand youth justice circles. The signs are encouraging. In October of this year, a well attended conference in Wanganui, entitled Collaboration for Success and jointly organised by six government ministries and community groups, highlighted the issue. The interagency Police Cell Remand Working Group, convened by the Chief Executive of the Ministry of Social Development, has proved a real success in reducing the number of young people remanded into police cells (although still not to an acceptable level). Several recent publications stress the necessity for collaboration. The Inter-Agency Plan for Conduct Disorder/Severe Antisocial Behaviour 2007-2012, jointly produced by the Ministries of Social Development, Health and Education, reflects the new government emphasis on a "joined-up" approach to specific issues facing youth offenders.

Similarly, the recent three-part review by Dr Melanie Atkinson for the High and Complex Needs Unit, entitled "Better at Working Together: Interagency Collaboration", sounds the same clarion call. Also, a new handbook produced by the Ministry of Justice which encourages collaboration at a local youth justice level, provides a practical toolkit for Youth Offending Teams. These are collaborative efforts mainly within and between government agencies.

The emphasis on collaboration is in vogue internationally also. Many different jurisdictions are recognising the importance of community based programmes delivered by non-government agencies in, or close to, the young offender's home environment. For instance, in November 2007, the Singapore Government organised a highly successful international conference 'Expanding Horizons", focussing on community based options for young offenders

This conference continues the new collaborative momentum but specifically targets the need for better collaborative endeavour with the non-government/community/volunteer sector. The new language of collaboration will force us to identify some of the future challenges we face at a national, systemic level. The following are some of the collaborative issues for the New Zealand youth justice system that have been identified.

• Until 2002 and the introduction of the government's "Youth Offending Strategy", there was no joined-up leadership structure for youth justice. No one government ministry was in charge. Historically, shared leadership had amounted to no leadership. The Ministry of Justice now leads a much more collaborative response to youth offending.

The leadership structure for youth justice, adopted in 2002, consists of: Senior Ministers' Group (SMG);

Youth Justice Leadership Group (YJLG), made up of Wellington-based officials from six government ministries, which meets monthly;

32 Youth Offending Teams (YOTs). These were initially formed to bring health and education (absent from the youth justice environment for so long) into a collaborative relationship with Police Youth Aid and with Child Youth and Family; and, Independent Youth Justice Advisory Group (IAG) chaired by the Principal Youth Court Judge, which meets six times a year in Wellington to provide independent, community-based advice to the SMG and the YJLG concerning youth justice issues.

No structure is proving perfect. Some improvements are pressing. However, the Senior Ministers' Group has met effectively since 2005, and the Ministers of Justice and Child Youth and Family took a strong lead from the outset. The Senior Ministers' Group has now taken responsibility for ensuring the implementation of action points and new initiatives for youth justice that have been agreed with the IAG. The Youth Justice Leadership Group, very effectively and energetically continues to oversee the implementation of the Seven Key Focus Areas of the Youth Offending Strategy. There have been some significant gains under its leadership. A challenge will be to prevent it becoming an "information sharing" group. Without senior level support from relevant Ministries, the YJLG will be unable to continue to lead meaningful change to the youth justice delivery system. (Effective support in this respect will now be provided by the Chief Executive of Child Youth and Family). Also, looking to the regions, some of the 31 Youth Offending Teams, now such a well established part of the local youth justice landscape, will perhaps need more support and guidance in order to assume local leadership for a collaborative government/community-based approach to youth justice in their areas.

• Collaboration, both locally and nationally, is still bedevilled by a paucity of good statistical information. Key Focus Area 2 of the Youth Offending Strategy has proved very difficult to implement. Collaboration will be hampered until this can be urgently remedied. More resources and personnel to work on this project may well be required.

• There is now an opportunity to consider a national "Youth Justice Training Centre" or "Centre for Excellence". This need not necessarily be at a fixed location in, say, Wellington. It could consist of a group of travelling educators/trainers from a variety of government and community backgrounds, who provide regional training. The training would be provided for the whole sector: government; community groups; youth advocates; Youth Court staff and Judges (thereby modelling a collaborative approach). The aim would be to provide best practice training and to engender an understanding of generic issues such as youth justice law and procedure and youth development issues as well as to conduct an analysis of "what works" and "what doesn't" when dealing with young offenders.

• There is also the opportunity to produce a regular national youth justice "magazine" or "clearing house" or website (apart from the Youth Court Website at www.courts.govt.nz/courts/youth), to disseminate relevant information, to highlight best practice initiatives, to build a sense of identity for the sector, and to represent the New Zealand experience to a world increasingly interested in how we have built on the innovations of 1989. The rather "amateurish" irregular newsletter, "Court in the Act", produced by the office of the Principal Youth Court Judge is a poor substitute!

• The challenge of co-location could now be addressed. The ideal of local youth justice centres which house all the significant government and community youth justice services (including the Youth Court) under the same roof, is a powerful dream. Co-location is also an area where overseas jurisdictions are now leading the way. All the YOTs in England are co-located in the same building and the advantages in improved communication, efficiency and collaborative interventions seem unarguable. Community Justice Centres in Liverpool, New York and Melbourne point to a better way of delivering "joined-up" services to young offenders. The advantages and disadvantages would of course need to be carefully weighed. For instance, for the Police Youth Aid, an important disadvantage would be the even greater risk of marginalisation from front-line police officers that would result from geographical separation from their adult focussed colleagues. But there may be a solution, such as rotated youth aid officers located at youth justice centres.

• The imperative for genuine collaboration with Maori, given the disproportionate offending rates for Maori youth, and the necessity to grow and empower tangata whenua programmes for youth offenders, seems to have met with only an erratic response. We must build on the vision and inspiration of early leaders such as Judge Mick Brown, the first Principal Youth Court Judge.

• Over the last five years there has been an erosion of community-based programmes as many government ministries, especially Police Youth Aid and CYFS, have faced funding pressures and insufficient resources in the face of a growing youth population. This has been accompanied by a reduced commitment to develop them. There are some important exceptions of course, such as the very successful Supported Bail Programmes (urgently in need of expansion) and, for instance, the High and Complex Needs Strategy which is still insufficiently utilised by the youth justice community. The situation is not all doom and gloom. And, thankfully, the new Child Youth and Family Youth Justice Capability Review has addressed the concerning deterioration in the support for community based providers and has made a clear commitment to restore the situation.

Against this snapshot of key concerns, collaboration within the New Zealand youth justice system is certainly a concept whose time has come.

Collaborative momentum certainly accompanied the 1989 legislation. Former Principal Youth Court Judge David Carruthers has commented that "it is hard to underestimate, let alone remember, the excitement that resulted from the introduction of this new legislation, and opportunities presented for a new community based approach." Yet that momentum slowed, and was kick started back into life at government level in 2002, and still awaiting new life in terms of government/non-government community based partnership. A conference such as this must be a beacon for the future, illuminating a New Zealand youth justice delivery system that will, from this time forward, be characterised by true collaboration.

D. The Necessity for Collaboration — Practically and Theoretically

1. The Practical Imperative for Collaboration

(a) The Case of Bailey Junior Kurariki

On 25 August 2002, one adult and four young people were convicted of various charges in relation to the death of Michael Choy on 13 September 2001. Bailey Junior Kurariki, who was 12 years old at the time of the attack on Michael Choy, and who was later convicted of his manslaughter, was the youngest member of the group.

The Ministry of Justice subsequently undertook a review of the dealings over time between the convicted offenders and the Police, Department of Child Youth and Family, and Health and Education Services to consider what improvements could be made in services available to those young people and their families[4].

The Ministry's review produced "3 key lessons", each of which point to opportunities for effective collaboration:

• The underlying causes of Kurariki's behaviour were not addressed, and, following a decision to keep him in the family home, a lack of support for Kurariki's mother meant that she was not equipped to manage him.

• Underlying causes of offending can be better targeted by training frontline staff and police in the use of risk assessment tools and processes. These tools are developed by medical professionals and researchers and can be ordered by a FGC or a CYF Youth Justice Coordinator. Education and heath assessment tools are also used to help get a comprehensive understanding of all relevant influences on a young person's offending.

• Kurariki had been excluded from formal education because schools could not cope with his behaviour. The review concluded that the burden of dealing with Kurariki was too much to place on the shoulders of the schools alone, and, that greater assistance should have been available from other social service agencies. The review pointed out that CYF fund a number of community based social service agencies which should be used by schools to help manage young people with difficult behaviours. To facilitate this, the review recommended that directories of community agencies should be compiled at a local or national level and distributed to schools by CYF or Youth Offending Teams.

• Poor communication between Police and CYF in Kurariki's case meant that full advantage was not taken of the provisions of the Children, Young Persons and their Families Act 1989 (CYPFA) in relation to the holding of an FGC. A FGC is a measure provided for in the CYPFA as a positive early step to holding a young person or a child accountable for their offending.

The review identified a need for more training of Police and CYF staff in the use of CYPFA provisions. It also recognised that poor understanding of the CYPFA amongst Police supervisors meant that subordinate officers did not thoroughly record apprehensions of young people, and did not refer these cases to specialist Youth Aid officers. This highlighted inter-agency collaboration issues. Objectives 1.5 and 4.1 of the Police National Youth Policing Plan 2005 - 2006[5] describe Police youth work as traditionally defined as being on the margins of frontline policing, and commit to increasing the knowledge base, understanding, and monitoring of all staff in relation to Police powers and obligations under the CYPF Act.

(b) Two Recent Psychological Reports: The Lessons They Teach Us

Section 333 of the CYPFA provides for a Youth Court to obtain a medical, psychiatric or psychological report to assist the Court to determine what sort of order or condition should be imposed on a young person, or indeed whether the young person is legally insane, or is fit to stand trial. Two such psychological reports recently encountered in respect of 14 year old young offenders, are illustrative. These reports provided thorough assessments of the psychological health of the two young people in question. They also highlighted the diversity of issues, and, by implication, the diversity of agencies and groups which needed to collaborate in providing services to these young people if their offending was to be properly addressed.

A's case: Wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm; Assault with a stabbing or cutting instrument

A's report showed a personal history of witnessing violence in the home, and multiple changes of residence, school and family group. A drank regularly, was dependent on cannabis, and was mildly clinically depressed. He was also prone to anger and violence, had a fascination with knives, and had not responded well to an anger management course. The psychologist pointed out that A's lack of symptoms of post traumatic stress disorder were of particular concern when viewed in conjunction with his lack of empathy and emotional connection to violent episodes in his life, and should be addressed in therapy. The report writer also advised that A's suicidal tendencies should be closely monitored given his alcohol use. The report describes A as talking about a culture of violence and substance abuse within his whanau (extended family), and about living virtually independently with his girlfriend, without the benefit of boundaries set or enforced by his closest parent. The report concluded that:

• A should live away from his mother in a "supportive residential type environment"
• A needs positive male role models and contact with his grandparents
• A should return to fulltime education
• A should receive counselling to address his anger and unresolved childhood experiences
• A needs intensive psychological therapy to create cognitive conflict about his violent behaviours and to enable him to empathise with others
• A should receive alcohol and drug counselling
• A needs to learn appropriate self defence techniques; and
• A's self esteem, confidence, and positive cultural identity would benefit from educational, leisure and Maori cultural activities which build on his strengths and interests.

B's case: Robbery; Aggravated wounding

B lives with four brothers and a sister, plus a step father and a step brother in a town described by a social worker as "a cesspool of gangs". His mother works night shifts and sleeps during the day. B has previously been placed in CYF care twice due to his mother and step father's drinking and violence. B's step father used to be a gang member. B's father, a gang member, was murdered when B was 8 years old. B's father was violent towards the family although B reports that he was "loving and cool". B's 16 year old sister has been hospitalised twice due to heavy drinking sessions with B's twin brother.

B has been hospitalised a number of times for violence-related injuries, and once when he was 3 years old, after swallowing 31 adult neuroleptic prescription tablets. B's school previously reported him as having significant behavioural difficulties. B was in trouble at many of the various primary schools he attended, being suspended many times, and was finally expelled. He reports responding positively to teachers helping him with his behavioural problems, and to being involved in singing and kapahaka (cultural performance). B reports doing well academically at his current high school. He is involved in sports and cultural groups. Some of his friends get into trouble, but others conform and play sports.

At the time of the report, B was resident at a CYF Youth Justice Residence. B reported drinking socially, but not to excess and admitted returning to cannabis use while staying at the Residence. B was remorseful, and regretted injuring his victim. B's high school principal reports B as sometimes volatile and violent, although polite in the right company. B's outlook on the future included returning home, and eventually attending university to do music or art.

In B's case, the report concluded that:

• B has a clinical conduct disorder
• B does not have PTSD, and is not clinically depressed when staying away from home
• B has witnessed and been subject to violence in the home, has suffered from poor parenting, and demonstrates risk factors for aggressive behaviour
• B needs strong male role models and a nurturing environment with firm boundaries and limitations
• B needs to live somewhere that is violence free, drug and alcohol free, is structured and has good monitoring
• B needs to go to school fulltime and to have limited contact with his mother
• B should have therapy that addresses his own violence, as well as the violence that he has witnessed within the family
• B should do cultural and leisure activities that build on his strengths and interests. These would help him develop a strong positive sense of self esteem and confidence and a positive cultural identity.

The web of factors which have contributed to the offending of these young people, and the variety of actions needed to address their offending and keep them out of Court in the future, are interrelated and interdependent. The two reports, typical of so many obtained by the Youth Court, strongly imply that strategies to rehabilitate A and B and to restore them to the communities which have suffered from their offending, cannot ignore the collaborative imperative and must encompass:

• Psychologists
• Social workers
• Teachers
• Police
• Sports groups
• Cultural groups
• Victims or their representatives.

Responses to youth offending simply have to be community-based and collaborative because the problems faced by young people and the causes of their offending are not readily compartmentalised or boxed. In the same way that the problems are interrelated and overlap, so must the responses be.

2. The Theoretical Imperative for Collaboration/Working Together

In Majumdar's review of collaboration among government agencies in New Zealand[6], he emphasises the concept of agency interdependence — a heightened awareness about common clients that has the potential to kindle a willingness to search for mutually involving and beneficial solutions. In an update of their 2001 study, Matessich et al[7] define collaboration as a mutually beneficial and well-defined relationship entered into by two or more organisations to achieve common goals.

The relationship includes a commitment to mutual relationships and goals; a jointly developed structure and shared responsibility; mutual authority and accountability for success; and sharing of resources and rewards.

At the beginning of his article, Majumdar announces that "Collaboration is a service-related concept, focussing principally on service delivery to individuals, families and community groups."[8] Service is, or should be, a powerful driver in youth justice. It is an object and an outcome that exists at the heart of all youth justice agencies. While notions of shared responsibility, authority, and accountability are no doubt important, the very existence of the subjects of youth justice — young offenders, victims, families and communities — makes service to these individuals and groups the main focus of any collaborative endeavours. Any discussion of common goals and shared clients should not lose sight of the fact that the rehabilitation and restoration of the offender, the victim, and the community is the primary focus of the youth justice community.

Majumdar provides a review of various New Zealand departmental studies into collaboration, with particular mention of reports produced by the Ministry of Social Development[9], and the State Services Commission[10]. The key message that Majumdar offers is that successful collaborations typically include[11]:

• Close relationships characterised by interdependence, commitment, and mutual understanding, trust and respect
• Participative decision making
• Open and frequent communication
• Complementarity in terms of resources and skills
• Strong, shared leadership

Successful youth justice collaborations should surely share all these characteristics.

Majumdar goes on to pose a series of questions that he believes remain unanswered by the literature on collaboration in New Zealand. These questions include:

• Does collaboration offer any benefits in technical efficiency or cost effectiveness over other formal agreements when it comes to meeting service delivery goals?
• What types of outcomes is collaboration best suited to achieving?
• Under what circumstances is it best to chose collaboration as a strategy?
• Can agencies ever choose not to collaborate?

There appear to be no studies that directly address the difference between the technical efficiency and cost effectiveness of collaboration, and any other method of service delivery for youth justice. Any unwillingness to collaborate between youth justice agencies, or community providers, would be detrimental to the developing fabric of youth justice collaboration, and also to the young people and communities it is meant to serve. While refusing to collaborate altogether is obviously not to be encouraged, there is a continuum of collaborative involvements that recognises varying degrees of commitment and interdependence. The following diagram represents this continuum[12].

Networking to integration - Collaboration continuum model

E. Putting Youth Justice Collaboration under the microscope 1. Police diversion (alternative action)

The first of the specialist youth justice principles enunciated by the Children Young Persons and the Families Act 1989 (CYPFA) demands that "criminal proceedings should not be instituted against a child or young person if there is an alternative means of dealing with the matter[13].

The burden of this provision falls on the Police, as they must decide whether or not to file formal charges against a young offender in the Youth Court. Formal charges can begin to mark a young person as an offender, both in their own mind, and in the minds of those around them. For the majority of offenders, which the literature calls "desisters", this mark is inaccurate and counterproductive.

Desisters require a low-key, measured approach that is nevertheless graduated to deal with escalations in offending. Interventions must emphasise accountability, insist on reparation, and restitution, and make the young person aware of the impact of their offending.[14] Police already collaborate with, and support the work of community groups to help young people and their families address the reasons and consequences of their offending. Programmes such as Community Approach in West Auckland, and Rubicon in Whangarei are good examples of this type of collaboration. That both these programmes are constituted as community trusts speaks volumes for the formal commitment to partnership recognised as essential for the effective delivery of these services.

Despite these programmes, and the Police's commitment to partnership and community development[15], it would appear that Police are beginning to charge too more young people in the Youth Court than is necessary. The introduction of the CYPFA in 1989 had a dramatic downward effect on the rates of young people charged in the Youth Court compared to those dealt with by Police diversions. Percentages of those apprehended who finally appeared in Court had remained down around 16% since 1989. In the past two years, however, rates of Youth Court charges have begun to increase, and increase alarmingly[16], as set out in Table 1 following. My concern is, that although Youth Court charges do not deny the young person access to community approaches and solutions, the process involved in Court proceedings, and the range of dispositions available, are practically limited and at least one step further removed from the idea that accountability needs to be direct and meaningful. Tony Saxon[17] reports an increase in Police charging despite an overall decrease in apprehension rates compared to population growth. Saxon comments that this increase might be accounted for by an increase in violent offending, however that increase is due in large part to an increase in apprehensions for 'common assault'[18] -an offence at the lowest end of the scale of violence. Arguably prosecutions for these 'common assaults' could in some circumstances be better dealt with by a detailed alternative action plan, or a comprehensive plan arising from a pre-charge Family Group conference, neither of which require a courtroom procedure.

A more compelling reason for this trend is the comparative decrease in the numbers of Police. Youth Aid officer numbers, already considered to be too low in 2002, have barely kept pace with increases in the 14 — 16 year old population since then. In some parts of New Zealand, individual Youth Aid constables are struggling with large case loads with the inevitable result that they end up sending more young people to Court.

In 2002, Police Youth Aid Co-ordinator Inspector Chris Graveson called police diversion/alternative action "the most significant part of the New Zealand Youth Justice process"[19]. The challenge for the Police is to live up to this statement, and, in conjunction with the community, to adapt the range of alternative actions available for dealing with low level offenders, even low level violent offenders.

Table 1. Percentage of each resolution type for Police apprehensions of 14 to 16 year olds for non-traffic offences, 1995 - 2006[20]

Research has shown up the differences in outcomes for young people exposed to formal court processes compared to those involved in more rehabilitative approaches. Although the shock of a formal process at an early age might be expected to deter children from re-offending, research shows it in fact has the opposite effect. Contact with the formal juvenile justice system has been shown to have a reasonable likelihood of increasing the level of criminal activity in early adulthood.[26] Research from the United States has shown that such negative effects on children are more likely for those who come from impoverished backgrounds or those described by the research as being "black.[27] This throws doubt on the suggestion that formal prosecution is the effective way to hold children accountable for their crimes.

Perhaps because these children have opportunities to mix with other young offenders and become au fait with court procedures, it can become very difficult to remove them from the formal criminal justice system. Further, as most offenders are "desisters"[28] they are low risk and there is no need for a court-based intervention. Intervention (sometimes firm and decisive) is necessary but it can take place very effectively in the community. In Hamilton, for example, Police Youth Aid have partnered with Taiohi Toa Charitable Trust to develop an alternative action project that has a dramatic impact on the number and quality of alternative actions carried out in the Hamilton area[29].

Taiohi Toa provides funding for the role of an Alternative Action Co-ordinator. This person takes referrals from Hamilton Police Youth Aid, and works to prepare and engage the young offender and their family with the Alternative Action process. The Co-ordinator also provides monitoring and support to enable the young offender and their family to complete the Alternative Action plan. The Co-ordinator is also in a good position to make referrals to other agencies, as he develops a deeper understanding of the young person's needs. The Co-ordinator and a Police Youth Services team member also plan and supervise community work days, which are designed to provide young offenders, whose Alternative Action plan includes community work, with specific tasks that benefit the community and deliver some measure of punishment as well.

Before the introduction of the Alternative Action co-ordinator, the non-completion of community work was one of the major factors behind the poor completion rate of Alternative Action plans in Hamilton. The increase in completion rates by young offenders following the introduction of a fulltime Alternative Action Co-ordinator was almost total[30]. Co-ordinators are also involved in re-engaging young people with school and other education opportunities.

Hamilton's Alternative Action Project and the funding of an Alternative Action Co-ordinator has had a number of other positive impacts:

• Police Youth Aid officers have more time to work proactively with offenders, as well as other agencies;
• The use of Alternative Action plans has increased, with a corresponding decrease in Family Group Conferences, and Youth Court appearances (both of which are seen as more serious options).

2. The intention-to-charge Family Group Conference - unpopular and misunderstood

Together with Police alternative action, the 'intention to charge' or 'pre-charge' family group conference (FGC) can also be understood as a product of the principle espoused in s208(a) of the CYPFA. The Act stipulates that Police cannot charge a young person in Court (who has not been arrested) unless, amongst other things, a FGC has been held to consider the situation[31]. Often, especially if the plan that arises from the FGC is successfully completed, the matter will end without charges being laid in the Youth Court at all. In this respect, the pre-charge FGC provides a powerful incentive for a non-Court, community-driven solution to be successful.

The pre-charge FGC is a true diversionary mechanism, but its use is restricted to situations where there has been no arrest. However, situations where there has been no arrest are much more numerous for young people than for adults, given that s214 severely restricts traditional Police arrest powers. The pre-charge FGC was conceived as an additional check on the traditional "enthusiasm" of the Police to charge young people with offences. It represents a sophisticated, incentive for a community-based diversionary response to sometimes even quite serious youth offending.

Pre-charge FGCs are 'community' solutions in the sense that they can involve the offender's family, the victim and their family, local community, cultural, or religious representatives. Representatives of 'professional' groups such as CYF and the Police are also present, but the aim of the meeting is to provide a forum where everyone can speak and listen, and any decisions must be reached by consensus. They are designed for more serious youth offenders, even some who are often described in the literature as 'persisters', for whom, at least initially, there seems to be a necessity to bring to Court.

Although the pre-charge FGC is the 2nd most common type of FGC, it accounts for only a third of all FGCs, and statistics suggest that this percentage is dropping (see Table 1). Despite this, and because pre-charge FGCs operate in the absence of the Youth Court, the pre-charge FGC is the last and best chance for these young people to benefit from a purely community-based justice forum, and it is the last chance for the offender's community to totally 'own' the process and the solution.

Police Youth Aid Co-ordinator Inspector Chris Graveson has criticised the pre-charge FGC process as being unable to 'fix' a plan if it is not being followed. This must be a risk where charges have not been laid and, that without Court supervision, there is inadequate monitoring. In this case, the community group that formulated the original plan must take responsibility for enforcing it. They must work hard to make the plan work, and promote the idea that the alternative course of formal charges in the Youth Court is not the 'cool' option, and will rarely provide a more therapeutic solution than one devised and monitored by the young person's own group.

Discussing this responsibility highlights an important aspect of Judge Fred McElrea's description of the New Zealand FGC process as, amongst other things, "[t]he [partial] transfer of power from the State, principally the Court's power, to the community"[32]. Grasping the opportunities given by this transfer of power means that communities can fulfil their therapeutic potential, whether a plan is going well, or not. With pre-charge FGCs, communities have it in their power to take the Youth Court out of the equation! (for Court ordered FGCs, discussed in the next section, the formulation of a comprehensive plan may well encourage a Court to stop short of imposing formal orders if the plan is successfully completed). This feeling of power should enthuse all FGC participants, including offenders and victims, to develop justice responses that are creative and meaningful.

Recent Ministry of Justice statistics[33] show an overall decrease in the use of pre-charge FGCs by the Police. Since 1995, referrals to pre-charge FGCs have fallen from 9.3%. This can be matched with a significant recent drop in referrals to Police Youth Aid[34]. The changes in the use of these two options can be compared to a distinct rise in the number of apprehensions that result in charges being laid in the Youth Court since 2004[35].

It seems clear that the increase in Youth Court charges cannot be wholly attributed to an increase in violent offending by young people. And, given that recent increases in violent offences relate largely to the least serious violent offences[36], it would be disappointing to think that Police believe they are more effectively responding to youth crime by sending more of the less serious offenders to Court. Arguably, it is this type of offender who could benefit most from being dealt with by a diversionary programme or a pre-charge FGC. Even with that latter approach, there is still the opportunity of charging the young offender in Court if the FGC plan breaks down.

For their part, Police have recently committed to principles of, amongst other things, minimising the use of criminal proceedings against young people, as well as dealing with "underlying causes" and settling "young people into a supported lifestyle where possible"[37]. When it comes to action on enforcement issues, Police say they will focus on high volume crime involving repeat and persistent offenders[38]. According to Police, these offenders need "more intensive work using multi-agency approaches"[39]. It is the hope of all in the Youth Justice system, that these multi-agency approaches can be implemented successfully without recourse to the Court.

3. Family Group Conferences and the "Community"

There are a variety of situations during the New Zealand Youth Justice process when FGCs occur. The two most commonly occurring are the intention to charge FGC, and the Court ordered FGC, which together, make up 90% of all FGCs.

Collectively, the FGC has been a 'poster boy' for the way the reforms of 1989 made the community more responsible for the delivery of justice solutions to young offenders and victims in New Zealand. Both the numbers of young people in Court, and those sentenced to custodial terms in youth justice residences and prisons reduced markedly after the introduction of the CYPFA. Qualitatively also, the Act has made a difference. At least half of the young offenders who have been through the FGC process either do not re-offend, or re-offend only in a minor way[40]. This is another world-leading statistic and shows that FGCs do work. So what are some of the criticisms of FGCs, and how can community involvement be used to improve things?

First, there is criticism based on the responsibility of the FGC to rehabilitate and reintegrate a young offender back into his community[41]. This means an examination of the causes of offending with the goal of enhancing the well being of the young person. It is the flip side of the FGC's accountability function, and should not be separated from it, or labelled as 'welfarist'.

Effective rehabilitation and reintegration are absolutely fundamental in the fight to reduce re-offending. While rehabilitation plans require the input of professional services such as SLD teachers[42] and mental health workers, the driving force behind the young person, and the support for their efforts to build wellness and a positive identity must come from their community. A community, of course, cannot do this work unsupported. While a community is busy caring for its young people, the professional sector should be busy caring for its community groups.

Specifically, community carers need better access to professionally-produced risks and needs assessments, so the plans produced by FGCs are properly informed and focussed on addressing the right issues for the young person. The old adage of "family knows best" will only be effective if the family has the best information available on which to base their decisions.

For example, if a young person has addiction issues, information establishing the dependency background, and about the treatment that is likely to be the most effective might be vital to the family. As a minimum requirement, and following CYF's own guidelines, risks and needs assessments should be available to the pre-charge FGC in every case where the young person is either:

A repeat offender,

Detained under ss238(1)(d) or 238(1)(e),

Someone who, in the opinion of the Youth Justice Co-ordinator, should have the benefit of such a report, or

• Where social work reports or plans recommend supervision, supervision with activity, or supervision with residence orders.

The community too, needs to make better use of its own experts. Unlike care and protection FGCs, there is scope for wider community input in the youth justice FGC process. As a radical suggestion, perhaps this could be achieved by way of two conference 'panel members' being invited to a FGC who have experience working with challenging young people and access to community programmes, training and jobs. Essentially they could inform the conference about appropriate training and opportunities that are available and explain how they could be accessed. Ideally, this information could be provided by FGC co-ordinators; but lack of time and unacceptably high case loads at least over the last five to ten years inhibited co-ordinators from developing meaningful links with the wide range of community groups that may exist in their area to support young offenders.

Maxwell et al[43] reported in 2004 that there were a number of problems with the way some FGCs were run, and some disappointments in the minds of participants. A common theme to these views is their focus on the interaction between professionals and community participants in the FGC process.

Around a third of participants felt unprepared for the conference meeting itself, in part because the co-ordinator had not made personal contact to explain and prepare them for it[44]. Several victims who participated in the survey commented that no one welcomed them to the conference venue when they arrived. Sometimes, police and other professionals began talking before the offender and their family had a chance to offer the victim something constructive and restorative in response to expressing their views on the personal impact of the offending. The authors comment that, of all the points in a conference that need to be "got right", this was the most critical[45].

Maxwell et al also criticise some professionals for the way they dominated the decision-making parts of conferences and didn't properly facilitate discussions on options for plans going forward. This failure to involve the whole group was sometimes exacerbated by professionals who disapproved of plan ideas generated by the offender and their family, and sought to modify the proposal in ways that lessened the involvement of key members of the offender's family, the offender themselves, or the victim[46].

Lastly, following agreement on the terms of a FGC plan, Maxwell et al comment that there are breakdowns in communication between offenders, community monitors, professionals and victims when it comes to completing the elements of a plan. Someone needs to ensure that compliance (or non-compliance) is accurately recorded, reparation is paid to the right person at the right time, and that victims are kept informed of the progress of the offender's work programme so that they can feel satisfied that the process has been worth something. Disillusionment amongst victims breeds contempt for a system that we could all be more proud of if the links between professional actors and community and family participants were even stronger.

Looking to the future for young offenders involved with the youth justice system at this level, Maxwell et al confirmed that early intervention, avoiding formal charges, and constructive FGCs all contribute to a reduced risk of re-offending and positive life outcomes. They also comment that a FGC can provide a valuable opportunity to address and respond to a young person's psychological problems, alcohol and drug issues, educational failure, and lack of employment.

Interestingly, these are all areas of a young person's life in which they are going to find it difficult to make progress unless their community and the local professional sector can collaborate to embed a solution that lasts, and reduces the risk of their re-offending.

The conclusions of Maxwell et al about what can make a difference in the future of a young offender[47] point to areas of collaboration where professionals and the community can work together to help young offenders find lawful meaning in their lives. The areas of significance to future outcomes for young offenders as identified by Maxwell et al are

Providing appropriate and effective mental health services
Making employment a realistic possibility
Avoiding placing the young people in situations where they form close bonds with others involved in offending.

4. Community monitoring of FGC plans

A plan arising from a pre-charge or court-ordered FGC may be a product of statute, but the statutory authorities are not necessarily the best agencies to monitor that plan and help the young person - the subject of the plan - to get the most out of it.

A good example of a community approach to successful monitoring of FGC plans comes from Youth and Cultural Development (YCD) in Christchurch. YCD is an inner-city based provider of services to young people who have offended, or who are 'at risk'. YCD has a contract with CYF to deliver monitoring of FGC plans after referrals from social workers or Youth Justice Coordinators. YCD staff are also called in to attend FGCs to explain how their programmes work, and the range of services that they offer or can provide access to.

YCD manager Anni Watkin, also a presenter at this conference, characterises her organisation's approach as a strength-based "Youth Work model", which allows youth workers to get alongside young people and stay alongside them for as long as it takes to achieve the vision detailed in the FGC plan. Watkin contrasts the Youth Work model with the Social Work model, which she says is too focussed on getting the young person to comply with Court orders, and is statutorily barred from working with the young person beyond the length of the Court order, or the FGC plan timetable. Anni Watkin also criticises the Social Work model for being too focussed on a young person's specific needs, and therefore unable to look at solutions for "the whole person".

Following the Youth Work model, YCD, on the other hand, has managed to attract funding from a variety of other agencies to enable them to continue helping the young person for as long as the young person requires help. FGC plans typically involve a timeframe of 3 to 6 months, but YCD is capable of extending their involvement with a young person beyond these boundaries. Individual YCD youth workers not only work directly with specific clients, but they also coordinate all other agencies and providers who might be implicated in the care of a particular young person.

Anni Watkin comments that, ideally, government would provide a single bulk fund to enable her organisation to operate more freely in terms of deciding which clients it continues to engage with, and for how long.

In my view, this vision provides a valuable insight into the kind of relationship that government departments and community providers should aspire to. It is a relationship that recognises the different strengths and weaknesses of both groups, and should provide the best standard of care for the young person, and have the best chance of reducing their risk of re-offending.

One aspect of FGC plans deserves special mention. That is community work, frequently included as a punitive element of a plan. There are ongoing concerns about the time taken to complete community work, and the delays this causes. In fact inability to complete community work is probably the single biggest reason for delays in the Youth Court. But this is not my main concern; better monitoring and choice of community work locations could overcome this. My real point is that there is scope for community work to become a significant intervention in its own right. Good supervisors/mentors, and the right sort of constructive work could play an important rehabilitative role. In Singapore community work supervisors actively seek out creative placements for community work and provide training for community work supervisors.

In similar vein, there is huge scope to make more out of reparation measures, invariably included as a component of an FGC. For instance in England, the Wandsworth Youth Offending Team in London, has a full time reparation co-ordinator who has developed links with

".. .a diverse number of community organisations and institutions. From day centres to schools, allotments to cemeteries, our young people are involved in many worthwhile projects across the borough.

One of the most successful projects is the bike workshop where unclaimed stolen bicycles are donated by the police to the YOT.

Working with a qualified bike mechanic, young offenders are taught how to strip, clean and rebuild the bikes. Once roadworthy, these bikes are then given to individuals within the borough who have had their bikes stolen.

Young people not only learn how to fix bicycles correctly, they also get to meet with members of the community who have been victims of crime and had their bikes stolen. This bike project won the Youth Justice Alliance Award from the Home Office for its work with victim support. One victim said 'it made a huge difference to me to have a positive outcome to what is a very negative experience of having one's bike stolen'"[48]

5. More community programmes are needed, particularly in Health, Education, Dependency and Specific Learning Disabilities; quality assessment required.

(a) The need for community based programmes

The government sector has a responsibility to seek out, support, and grow as many community programmes, especially those offering health, education, dependency (drug and alcohol) and SLD services to young people, as is needed by that community. There are shortages in all these areas. And there now seems to be little doubt that in terms of reducing re-offending, community based programmes work best. This is a subject that I addressed in detail at the recent conference in Singapore I mentioned earlier, and there is no need to repeat all that I said there.[49] Certainly there will be a place for custodial sanctions, both for punishment of very serious crime taking into account the public interest, and on some occasions simply to protect the public. As is well known, in New Zealand we imprison about 60 under 17 year olds a year. But imprisonment is not effective for young people as a means of reducing re-offending. That is best done in the community, and better still in the context of the environment which probably contributed to the offending and to which the offender will have to return.

A special word is required about conduct disorder. A recently released report: "The Interagency Plan

for Conduct Disorder/Severe Antisocial Behaviour 2007 —2012,[50] addresses the issue squarely. The Plan itself is an excellent example of inter-governmental collaboration. It notes that

"[c]onduct problems are the single most important predictor of later chronic problems including poor mental health, academic underachievement, delinquency and unemployment" (emphasis added)

In similar vein, Professor David Fergusson, who has led the work of the Christchurch School of Medicine's longitudinal study of 1000 people born in 1976, concludes that as far as youth offending and at risk behaviour is concerned, all roads lead to conduct disorder.

In that respect, the recently re-jigged multi-systemic family therapy approach, being delivered under CYFS auspices in two Auckland sites, using trained psychologists as part of the delivery team, is proving very successful. There is a real need to expand the services that are available to our top end most seriously violent and/or repeat offenders with this type of community based programme.

In my view, the area of specific learning difficulties should also have a special place in the early prevention of offending, and government agencies need to be alive to the symptoms, and the possibilities for overcoming them. SPELD, for example, provides assessment and remedial programmes for young people at risk of being alienated from school because of their different learning needs. As we all know, non-participation in school is probably the biggest correlative to youth offending. We also know that learning difficulties, behavioural difficulties, and school disengagement often run hand in hand, and compound the risks of offending and re-offending.

In recent years, at least in England, there has been considerable debate about the extent to which there can be said to be a link between learning disabilities, especially dyslexia, and criminal offending by young people.

The Chief Executive of the British Dyslexia Association, has commented that:-

"In recent years a number of projects and studies has identified a link between dyslexia and offending. A much higher incidence of dyslexia, usually between 30% and 50% have been found amongst offenders compared with and incidence of 10% in the general population. Yet appropriate educational support of dyslexic offenders remains the exception rather than the rule".

A joint study by the British Dyslexia Association and the Bradford Youth Offending Team in 20 04[51], concluded that:-

"There is evidence of a "route to offending" among certain young people, which starts with difficulties in the classroom, moves through low self-esteem, poor behaviour and school exclusion, and ends in offending. Children and young people with dyslexia are more likely fall onto this route, because of the difficulties they face with learning...

A sample of 34 young offenders was screened for dyslexia and 19 were categorized as dyslexic, an incidence of 56%. The incidence of dyslexia appeared to increase with the severity of the offending. Reading ages were generally much lower than chronological ages and informal contact with the sample highlighted low self-esteem. Of the 19 young people in the dyslexic group, 7 had a statement of Special Educational Need, but they all related to behavioural problems, not dyslexia.

This study adds weight to evidence that suggests that there is a much higher incidence of dyslexia amongst young offenders. I am not aware of any similar research in New Zealand. However, the NZ Learning and Behaviour Charitable Trust, has campaigned for years for a similar study to be carried out to test of the incidence of learning disabilities, and dyslexia in particular, at the three NZ youth justice residences, operated by the Department of Child, Youth and Family Services. There is a clear need for greater support and resourcing for community groups involved in the area of learning and the associated field of behavioural difficulties.

There are other issues too, such as foetal alcohol syndrome, which we are realising may significantly increase the risk of youth offending.

Often these types of issues are championed by community based trusts or interest groups, which exist on the margins of the youth justice sector. As a sector we are slow to pick up on the challenges provided by these issues and to support the groups that raise them. We must do better at incorporating these issues into the mainstream youth justice response.

(b) What characterises effective programmes?

There is plenty of research on what makes an effective community programmes for young offenders. Where possible, programmes should specifically target the risk factors described and, ideally, all these needs and problems should be addressed by one intervention so that young people and families do not need to travel to several locations and can avoid issues with various services not providing co-ordinated content. Research shows that accessibility is an important factor in a young person completing a programme.

Effective programmes[52] provide services which:

• Teach young people how to manage their emotions, particularly anger, and how to manage impulsiveness.
• Teach effective violence prevention skills, for young people and parents.
• Treat substance abuse using effective techniques.
• Teach relapse prevention skills.
• Teach parenting skills such as reasonable rules and discipline, the importance of knowing where children are and what they are doing; affection and acceptance.
• Provide practical support for families with financial matters, particularly making sure they are not living in poverty.
• Increase social skills among young people, and get them involved in positive activities where they can make law-abiding friends.
• Improve attitudes to school, attendance and academic performance.
• Help families cope positively with poor neighbourhoods or move to less risky neighbourhoods.

The most effective interventions target young people who have a longer and more serious offending history and who are more likely to offend again, rather than youth who have committed few and/or petty crimes. Effective interventions also build in multiple components (e.g. education, work skills and substance abuse), address multiple needs and strengths (such as anger management, thinking skills and making law-abiding friends), and work in multiple environments. The more characteristics of effective practice a programme incorporates, the more impact it has on offending. Lastly, programmes that work across several areas of a young person's life — such as family, peer group and school — are more likely to be effective than those that work in only one area.

Research highlights the importance of teaching young people the necessary skills to reduce violence such as anger management. It is also vital to protect programme quality ensuring that the actual content of the programmes does not change over time through budget cuts or the ideas of new staff. Effective programmes rely on staff with excellent people skills who are trained to use the actual programme and who are given clear guidelines as to how the programme should be run.

For non-residential programmes, involvement with the young person for six months, with contact as often as once a day, is optimal. The same time frame appears effective with live-in programmes, but here continuous treatment is most effective — that is, having treatment incorporated into every aspect of the day-to-day regime. Long periods of residential treatment do not appear effective, in part because of the harmful impact of living alongside other criminally inclined youth.

Recent research has emphasised that community-based programmes and interventions for young people, even those that have worked well in some locations, will not necessarily work well in others unless there is adherence to basic minimum principles. Dr Andrews, in a very useful article[53], suggests eight important principles that should characterise interventions for youth offenders, which when faithfully implemented, are likely to result in success, ie by reducing re-offending. They are:

• Employ structured and validated risk/need assessment instruments
• Never assign low risk cases to intensive service
• Reserve intensive services for moderate and higher risk cases
• Always target a predominance of relevant criminogenic needs
• Always employ cognitive-behavioural and social learning interpersonal influence strategies
• Managers and supervisors must attend to the relationship and structuring skills of service delivery staff
• Clinical supervision entails regular ongoing high level modelling and reinforcement of relationship and structuring skills
• Make monitoring, feedback, and corrective action routine, as a matter of policy

In short, the criminogenic needs that were causative of the young person's offending should be addressed. The highest risk cases should be separated out and targeted intensively. Staff must adhere to standards of excellence with regular reviews. Only demonstrably successful programmes, especially cognitive-behavioural strategies and those which will guarantee a response, should be used, and they should be regularly reviewed.

Those principles (and all the associated research) suggest that a simple solution of sending all youth offenders to a residential programme, such as a "boot-camp" type programme, would be unsuccessful. Indeed it could increase re-offending - unless it was reserved for the most difficult and intensive cases; addressed the individual needs of the offender which caused the offending; used effective programmes and employed high quality staff. In an ideal world a "residential" setting would be replaced by intensive, multi-systemic interventions with the young offender in her/his environment - the same environment likely to be highly causative of the offending in the first place - and the same environment to which, at some stage, the young offender will inevitably have to return.

Professor Ross Homel, from Griffith University, Queensland Australia, in a recent paper, drew attention to the costs and benefits of a multi-systemic therapy approach. The net benefit per participant, in terms of savings for the criminal justice system and crime victim benefits was $56,528 (US). On the other hand evaluations for boot camps, the net cost for which was $7,511 per participant, found there was an average increase in the recidivism rates participants compared to regular case processing.[54]

(c) The need for a quality assessment of all programmes.

If, as argued, government departments have a responsibility to nurture and fund community based programmes, then there is an obligation on those programmes to submit to a rigorous assessment process that ensures that best practice standards are being adhered to. Well meaning enthusiasm and idealism, while important, are no substitute for adherence to proven principles.

I was recently informed that there are now over 92,000 community organisations in the volunteer sector in New Zealand.[55] A significant number of these are primarily concerned with services for children, youth, and families. Yet until recently there has been no standardised assessment tool to judge the effectiveness of these programmes. This has been a significant deficiency in the youth justice landscape. Government agencies have sometimes become supporters of the loudest voice or the latest fad. Two new tools should make much easier the decision of which youth justice programmes to support.

First is a research paper commissioned by the Henwood Trust from Dr Gabrielle Maxwell, who hardly needs any introduction in NZ youth justice circles, to develop criteria for the evaluation of programmes aimed at young offenders and the providers who deliver such programmes. The report includes a checklist/criteria, divided into four domains "to enable an effective response to young people judge[d] to be seriously at risk of offending or repeat offending."[56]

Second Kaye McLaren has prepared a "Youth Offending Services' Effectiveness Checklist" (YOSEC), for use by the Ministries of Justice and Social Development. It is still being validated and fined tuned. It is a detailed assessment tool, commissioned by government agencies primarily to assist community groups to improve the quality of the intervention programmes they deliver. It will also provide exactly the sort of measure by which to judge the effectiveness of existing programmes or the likely effectiveness of proposed programmes for which funding is sought.

Use of these sorts of assessment tools should surely become mandatory.

6. Better use of Supervision and Supervision with Activity orders

Supervision, and Supervision with Activity, along with Supervision with Residence, are the Youth Court orders designed to have the greatest impact on the circumstances and attitudes of young offenders[57]. The CYPFA clearly indicates that Supervision with Activity involves a far greater commitment from the young person and the community than Supervision[58], and that Supervision with Activity is a true alternative to Supervision with Residence for the majority of cases[59].

Supervision

Supervision orders[60] are fifth highest on the scale of Youth Court orders, and require the young person to remain under the supervision of the Chief Executive of CYF or another person (as long as that person agree) for up to 6 months. Supervision orders can be standalone or ordered in combination with most other orders[61].

Sections 305 and 306 CYPFA set out the mandatory, and additional conditions that the Court may include in a sentence of Supervision. Judges are encouraged to use the opportunity for imposing discretionary conditions allowed for in s306 to deliver a "tailored, individualised plan"[62] for the young person. Despite the generally restrictive tone of the ss305/306 conditions, there is immense scope for supervision orders to provide for community involvement in a young offender's acceptance of their offending, and rehabilitation. Although judges are advised to note all conditions on the written order, and not refer only to a social worker's report, in practice, the Court relies heavily on the advice of the social worker. Social workers, in turn, should be working hard at the FGC level to encourage the formulation of comprehensive and creative community-based plans.

Supervision with Activity

Supervision with Activity[63] is the third most serious order available to the Youth Court, and also, by statute[64], a true alternative to Supervision with Residence (the Youth Court's only custodial order) in most cases. It involves the young person undertaking a specified programme or activity for up to 3 months, and 24 hours a day 7 days a week if necessary, followed by up to 3 months supervision. The legislation deliberately envisages collaboration between the Court, Child Youth and Family, and community providers to produce a programme that can be approved by the Court, targeted at making the young person face up to their offending, and address the damage caused to their own lives, as well as those of their victims and communities.

Earlier this year, attention focussed on sentencing trends in the Youth Court which showed the numbers of young people sentenced to Supervision with Activity, as opposed to Supervision with Residence, was diverging markedly. Numbers of Supervision with Activity orders were dropping, and sometimes disappearing altogether, while numbers of Supervision with Residence orders were increasing. Significant regional disparities were also highlighted. This was a concern to a number of youth justice commentators who saw Supervision with Activity as being a qualitatively better option for providing sentences that were therapeutic for offender, victim and their communities[65].

Unfortunately, recent figures from the Ministry of Justice[66] show that the numbers of Supervision orders are falling, and the number of Supervision with Activity orders have continued to fall further in the first three quarters of 2007 (see Table 2). These figures can be contrasted with figures for the same period focussing on numbers of Supervision with Residence orders made (see Table 3). Despite increased publicity surrounding the disparity between numbers of Supervision with Activity and Supervision with Residence orders, the challenge to turn around the trends in these two statistics still remains.

Table 2. Count of Supervision with Activity Orders, quarterly by court location - top 20[67]

Table 3. Count of Supervision with Residence Orders, quarterly by court location - top 20[68]

Three possible solutions for these declining numbers have been suggested by those within the youth justice community.

First, Supervision with Activity should be incorporated into the "lesser" Supervision order. This solution ignores the special nature of Supervision with Activity that stems from the origins of the order, and the extra programme content prescribed in s307 (1)(a)(b). It also ignores the linking of Supervision with Activity to Supervision with Residence in s289, which suggests that Supervision with Activity is a true alternative, and one that should be preferred when suitable programmes are available. Boosting Supervision with Activity numbers by the device of converting Supervision Orders into Supervision with Activity would be contrary to law (s289) and quite wrong in principle.

Second, the need for the consent of the young person to an order of Supervision with Activity should be removed. This is probably a sensible solution. The need for such consent is said to limit the ability of Courts to impose the order, because young people are said to view Supervision with Activity as a more difficult option, compared with being simply incarcerated under a sentence of Supervision with Residence, followed by six months Supervision in the community. If this is true, it is a sad indictment on the operational content of the Supervision component of Supervision with Residence, and how it has begun to be perceived by "experienced" young offenders. Adults working with those young offenders who would be prefer a Supervision with Residence Order and a custodial option, should redouble their efforts to encourage involvement in community-based programmes that work on young offenders' life skills, relationships, education or employment.

Third, there is said to be a lack of suitable activity programmes available in the community. This is probably a justified concern. With the "marginalisation" of youth justice services within CYFS during the last ten years, the resources to develop and nurture community-based interventions for youth crime dwindled. As a result, nationally, there are only a small group of programmes now capable of providing a stand alone community-based response for youth offenders. However, some commentators such as Ms Anni Watkin, a member of the government appointed Youth Justice Independent Advisory Group, suggests that there are sufficient providers in the community. The problem is that they are simply not identified. In Christchurch, for example, Anni Watkin and YCD (mentioned earlier in this paper) are established providers of a wide range of Youth Justice services. YCD would accept more referrals and develop more individualised programmes for young offenders sentenced to Supervision with Activity if they had the funding.

Anni Watkin comments that, to her mind, there is a sufficient directory of programmes available in Christchurch, but it is often ignored. Anni Watkin also comments that there is a lack of confidence amongst youth justice professionals in young people's ability to make positive choices for themselves which gives rise to a belief that Supervision with Activity plans will be of little value. To add to this, she thinks there is a lack of organisation when it comes to linking young people with their communities post-sentence.

It is my hope that Anni Watkin's concerns will be met in a large part by CYF's new youth justice structure. Social workers have traditionally been so overburdened with their immediate caseloads, that learning about and fostering community capabilities has taken a back seat. With the unveiling of the new youth justice approach within CYFS, the pressure of work can no longer be an excuse. In their defence, CYFS are sending many positive signals. Earlier this year CYF released a tool kit for youth justice managers promoting interagency collaboration. The Toolkit gives examples of existing collaborations, and provides theoretical background, guidance and templates for bringing professional agencies and provider organisations together.

A further analysis from an historical perspective has been provided by former Child Youth and Family Chief Social Worker Mike Doolan. In a recent issue of Court In The Act[69] he described Supervision with Activity as intensive management of a young person in the community by providing opportunities for the young person to engage in meaningful activities which would be sufficiently structured to give the Court confidence that opportunities for further re-offending would be significantly reduced, and the interests of the community would be sufficiently protected[70].

Noting that the use of Supervision with Activity has been in decline for a number of years to the point where it is virtually extinct in some areas, Doolan attributes this decline to, amongst other things:

• a disconnection between the development of the policy, and the implementation of it at an operational level;
• too much optimism that family groups could provide core programme activities without support; due to

- insufficient funding of social workers following the economic reforms of the early 1990s;

- a lack of skills in the area of flexibly funding wrap around service agreements with family providers; and

- a lack of quality and intensive training of Child Youth and Family staff.

The history of Supervision with Activity is a valuable lesson, if we needed one, that good collaboration with the community will not just happen by itself, even if it is prescribed by an Act of Parliament.

7. Segregation and aggregation - a warning

Recent research from the United States is beginning to highlight one reason why some types of programme not only fail to provide the desired objective - a reduction in youth re-offending - but may increase delinquent behaviour.[71]

The all too typical Western World response to "deviant" youth behaviour is to segregate these young people from their families, schools and communities and from other non-at-risk youths and then to aggregate them in groups with young people who exhibit similar behaviours. These groups may include group counselling sessions, residential programmes, imprisonment, boot-camps and 'scared straight' programmes. The agencies involved are tempted to use this approach because "[s]uch practices make meeting the needs of deviant youth more financially and logistically feasible and serve the potential function of protecting non-delinquent youth from harm or negative influence."[72] Emerging research however suggests that segregation and aggregation may in fact serve to spread deviant behaviour.

'Deviant peer contagion' refers to "inadvertent negative effects associated with intervention programmes that aggregate peers in the delivery of a therapeutic protocol, educational service, or community programme."[73]

The evidence for this phenomenon has been reviewed in a recent book[74] written in the United States. The basic thesis is that the placement of high-risk young people in group settings with deviant peers (even in community based settings) has the potential to worsen their problems. Deviant behaviour is known to be concentrated in groups such as gangs. However, the recent hypothesis is that deviant peer contagion also occurs in groups designed to treat or reduce the behaviour. This is called the iotrogenic effect.

Although research directly examining peer influence in justice programme settings is rare, concerns that grouping anti-social youth will result in negative social influence are not new. In 2002, a Commission of Scholars was formed to study the problem of peer contagion. The following is a summary of the Commission's findings and recommendations:

(a) Deviant peer contagion occurs in naturally occurring peer interaction and is strongest:

• during early adolescence
• for youth who have not yet committed themselves to a deviant life
• for youth who are exposed to other youth slightly more deviant than themselves
• for youth who interact in unstructured, unsupervised settings
• for behaviours normally acquired through social process.[75]

(b) Segregation and aggregation provide 'short-lived' protection for society and illusory cost benefits.

The majority of public spending in response to youth deviance is dedicated to the segregation and aggregation model. The justification for this is the protection of society, cost saving and optimal treatment for deviant youth.[76]

The researchers argue that society's protection is 'short-lived' as these youth soon return to society. The costs savings also may amount to a false economy as deviant youth who are not successfully socialised away from a criminal life may cost society more than $2 million (US$) each.[77] The argument that aggregation is an optimal treatment model is not supported by empirical analyses.

(c) Treatment or placement with deviant peers reduces the potential for positive impact and in some cases has adverse effects on youth adjustment.

It was long assumed by those involved in treating young offenders that the admitted power of deviant peer influences could be harnessed to effect positive change for vulnerable youth.[78] However, it is clear from the research that some group-administered interventions, including 'scared straight' programmes have adverse effects on their recipients although it is not always clear what aspect of the intervention is responsible for the adverse effects. On the basis of compelling studies involving random assignment and long-term follow up, it was concluded that:

'under some circumstances the aggregation of deviant peers subverts the intended benefits of interventions and leads to less positive, sometimes even negative, outcomes for partidpating youth.'[79]

(d) While treatments often have positive effects, these may be eroded through group administration

Cost and feasibility dictate the delivery of group programmes although no studies have been conducted to test the cost-benefits of individual programmes in the long term.

(e) Placement with deviant peers further erodes treatment effects

Programmes in which at-risk youth are placed with deviant youth further erode positive treatment effects. The researchers also suggest that official processing of youths in court may exacerbate antisocial development through the perception both of the young person themselves and of others that the youth is a member of a deviant group.[80] They refer to deviancy training, which involves reinforcement of deviant behaviour among peers.

(f) Not all deviant peer group placements are equal.[81]

Despite the finding that outcomes associated with deviant peer aggregation appear to be unpredictable, the researchers found that several factors were important when determining whether an outcome would result in a negative or positive impact. These factors are:

• Age and gender of child
• The level of progression into deviance
• The amount of time in the group
• Opportunities for interaction among members outside the group
• Ratio of deviant to non-deviant in the group
• The group structure
• The level of expertise of the group leader
• Cultural context of the intervention
• The outcome in question.

8. Christchurch Youth Drug Court: Interagency co-operation at its best

The Youth Drug Court (YDC) began as a pilot in 2002, (confirmed as a permanent initiative in 2006) with the aim of early identification of young offenders with drug and alcohol problems, reducing time delays in service delivery to these young people, facilitating effective interagency co-ordination, and monitoring these young people through their treatment. The Court targets young offenders with moderate to severe drug dependencies. It takes a therapeutic approach using a cross-disciplinary team with intensive Court monitoring of young offenders' progress.

A review of the Youth Drug Court by the Ministry of Justice, published in 2006[82], confirmed that:

"[t]he Youth Drug Court's current structure and processes appear particularly effective in engaging young people and their families, increasing motivation to change, providing timely and in-depth assessment and facilitating access to treatment. It also has strengths in developing a positive and effective relationship between the judiciary and young people and their family/whanau. Other positive aspects of the YDC include the interagency coordination, the support provided to young people and their families and the high level of supervision and accountability that young people experience.

All these are strengths which can be built on and considered for wider adoption within the general Youth Court, and it is suggested that a more rigorous assessment of the problems which are causally related to offending could be considered in the Youth Court. This would include screening for medium to high risk of re-offending and a range of problems causally related to offending, a full assessment of all needs, and referral to services which address the moderate to severe needs/problems identified.

The following list contains a number of features identified as good practice:

• The same Judge dealing with the young person each time he/she appears in the Youth Court to develop a "contractual" relationship between the Judge and young person.
• High quality assessment to inform decisions about intervention.
• More frequent court appearances to monitor progress and deal with any issues arising.
• Closer monitoring of the young person to ensure compliance with any court orders (normally these would be in the form of bail conditions) by a multi-disciplinary team including representatives of several government agencies.
• Referral to services which address as many as possible of the moderate to severe needs/problems identified in the assessment and Family Group Conference.
• Choose treatment services that are tailored to the young person and family's needs and preferences, as much as possible, to further reduce barriers to treatment and increase engagement. This includes providing young people with the opportunity to attend programmes and counselling services that incorporate and integrate cultural paradigms/frameworks.
• Choose services that teach new skills in active ways, particularly relapse prevention skills (for example, identifying cues to drug/alcohol use or offending, learning new ways to respond to them) and thinking skills such as predicting consequences of behaviour and problem solving.
• Aim to involve the young person in a range of positive, socially normal activities which will replace alcohol and drug activity, such as education, work, sport, culture, recreation, to expose them to new values and acquaintances. Ensure that hours of involvement in treatment and positive activities are high.
• Choose services that involve families, partners and friends in treatment so they can learn the skills and encourage the young person to keep using them. Train and support families in effective supervision, discipline and communication.
• Ensure that adequate supports, including treatment programmes and counselling, are put in place for young people exiting the YDC. This support should taper off as the young person gradually learns to cope on their own, but provision for young person to access services, if needed, should remain open. This would also include transfer to adult services if their age precluded access to children and young person's services."

This approach is being continued by Judge McMeeken, who now presides over the Youth Drug Court after Judge Walker's dedicated work for the first three years, as he established and bedded down the model. And now, in the Auckland Youth Court, Judge Fitzgerald has introduced the concept of the Intensive Management Group, for a small group of high risk offenders, based on the Christchurch Youth Drug Court model.

In a recent speech, the Drug Court's first Judge, Judge John Walker, spoke about the need to address the underlying causes of youth offending, and warned that no one agency or community group, or family can deal with the problem on their own[83]. Judge Walker commented that debate about which particular government or community sector should take responsibility for the problem of underlying causes of youth offending is paralysing. He said the problem "will only respond to a multidisciplinary, interagency, whole of community attack and nothing less will do." The Judge praised the approach of the Liverpool Community Justice Centre in the UK, which groups all relevant health, justice, housing, and employment agencies under the same roof, and makes their personnel available to Youth Court judges, as well as offenders, victims, and the community as a whole. He said "In the criminal justice arena working collaboratively simply has to be best practice and recognised as such. Courts can provide the rallying point."

9. National Structural Issues: Youth Offending Teams

As a result of the Government's 2002 Youth Offending Strategy[84], the structure of the management of youth justice in New Zealand was redesigned.

Part of this redesign involved the establishment of regional Youth Offending Teams (YOTs). These YOTs are made up of representatives from Police, CYF, and the health and education sectors, and were set up to enhance collaboration between these agencies in the short term. The YOTs were tasked with co-ordinating service delivery to youth offenders, and facilitating a coordinated approach with other Youth Justice providers, such as the Court and community groups. Once this basic YOT model had become established, it became apparent that good relationships with key community groups were needed to get the most out of the structure. Some YOTs began to reach out to tangata whenua, local Councils, Youth Advocates, and community providers.

The most successful YOTs have extended the mandate of collaboration and opened up their membership to other agencies and community groups with an interest in Youth Justice. These successful YOTs have demonstrated the advantages and gains that derive from effective collaboration. I was dismayed recently to be present at a meeting of one particular YOT, which was asked by two local groups involved in providing drug and alcohol, and sex offender services, to admit them as members of the Team. The YOT in question turned down this request on the grounds that the Youth Offending Strategy did not allow it, and there would be a risk that these new members would only attend sporadically. In my view, this decision was short sighted, counter productive, and displayed a misunderstanding of the Youth Offending Strategy. I am bound to say that this sends a negative message about collaboration at a time when other areas of the sector are embracing it and achieving good results[85].

Funding for a specific co-ordinator is also vital to support the effectiveness of the collaborative structure. Paid co-ordinators are not currently provided for. Hamilton YOT's Melanie Atkinson[86] has written that[87]

From our experience in this project I, and most of he members of the YOT, formed a view that collaborations need to be staffed. There is significant value in having someone to co-ordinate and oversee the development of collaboration and this view is also supported by research.

....

Many collaborative initiatives, including YOTs, have been created with the expectation that group members will carry out the organisational tasks required to develop and sustain collaboration in addition to their current workload. It is my view that such an expectation is unrealistic and creates significant capacity issues as barriers to success.

....

My observation of other YOTs around New Zealand suggest that providing relevant technical assistance enables a group to work more strategically and effectively. Such assistance may include problem identification, facilitating planning, and developing monitoring and evaluation mechanisms. Much of the input to YOTs has focussed on youth justice issues, such as causes of crime, risk factors, legislation, and effective interventions. While this is important, the process of collaboration must also receive attention. There has perhaps been an assumption that collaboration will just happen but the literature suggests that this is not always the case.

Membership of the Hamilton YOT includes:

Dr Melanie Atkinson has spoken about the benefits of extending participation beyond the four government agencies. She says[88]:

• Maori membership is critical if the YOT is wanting to address offending by Maori Youth;
• The four government agencies no longer reflect a fragmented system;
• The planning process benefits from a comprehensive perspective;
• Value in building networks and sharing information;
• Project planning and implementation is improved with a larger pool of people to draw on.

A well functioning YOT takes the lead in its local area by providing a collaboration focussed on 'whole-of-system' issues, while, at the same time, encouraging other specialised collaborations looking at specific areas of practice and service delivery.

F. One Final Challenge . . . Partnership with Tangata Whenua

So far, this paper has not addressed what is arguably the most significant issue that a truly collaborative youth justice system in New Zealand must face. It arises from the disproportionate representation of Maori in all youth offending statistics. The issue is whether "partnership" and "collaboration" within the youth justice system has properly and successfully included tangata whenua within the partnership "umbrella."

The concerning statistics are well known and need not be rehearsed in detail. Suffice to say that Maori comprise about 50% of apprehensions for youth offending. Up to 60% of those young people remanded in police cells because of insufficient beds in youth justice residences are Maori. And in some Youth Courts, where there is a relatively higher Maori population, the number of Maori appearing in the Youth Court is dramatic — eg in Kaikohe 92% of all youth offenders appearing are Maori; in Gisborne, 89% and in Rotorua, 86%[89].

All of us involved in the youth justice system must pause to question whether we are ensuring that "partnership" with tangata whenua is as effective, empowering and successful as it should (and could) be. Are we in fact dealing with our Maori young offenders in a true community-based partnership with the Maori community?

This question is necessitated not only because of the raw statistics, but also as a result of the influence of the Treaty of Waitangi. This paper leaves to one side the issue of the legal status of the Treaty and its (arguable) application to youth justice in the absence of explicit statutory recognition by the relevant statutes. But, given the importance of the Treaty in contemporary New Zealand life, reference to so-called "Treaty principles" might at least provide helpful insights by which to judge the health of our youth justice partnership.

Certainly the language of "principles of the Treaty" was created by Parliament and necessarily developed by the judiciary in the absence of statutory guidance; and even the notion that the Treaty is susceptible to the language of "principles," let alone principles established by the judiciary, has not been without controversy.

But, accepting for the moment that reference to principles of the Treaty may provide relevant guidance, or at least a crude checklist for government agencies in their dealing with the Maori community/voluntary youth justice sector, the following principles might be usefully considered.

Foremost, especially in the "Working Together" context of this Conference, is the principle of partnership — akin to legal partnership — which includes duties of good faith, reasonableness and the honour of the Crown. (Here, government sector agencies could be considered to represent the Crown). An application of this principle could result in government agencies actively consulting tangata whenua so that Maori community initiatives are sought out (or grown), recognised, respected, nurtured and funded, and are dealt with in good faith. There will be a duty on government departments to also apply a principle of "informed decision making" regarding preferred Maori responses to youth offending and a duty to take into account Maori preferences. The principle of "active protection" is also perhaps useful in this discussion, in the sense that government agencies will need to be vigilant to ensure that the rights and responsibilities of Maori community groups to deal with their own rangitahi is at least protected and perhaps guaranteed.

As an example (and recognising the irony that in making these suggestions I may be guilty of usurping the principle of consultation and informed decision making!), the police partnership in the Waikato with the Taiohi Toa Charitable Trust to supervise police youth aid diversion plans, discussed above, would seem an excellent application of these principles. Similar the use of YCD to supervise FGC plans, discussed above, would seem a useful model to develop. There are other similar initiatives with tangata whenua in parts of the country. But generally these initiatives are sporadic and patchy. The challenge is to make them an indispensable feature of youth justice delivery throughout the country. In the area of developing Marae/community based intervention programmes catering for serious young Maori offenders, and in terms of research as to whether the existing system as effectively meets the needs of Maori as it does for non-Maori, there remains much to be done.

I raise these issues as part of a questioning process, which surely in early 21st Century New Zealand we must be mature enough to face and to resolve. Is it too much to suggest that the youth justice system could provide the perfect forum to model the sort of approach that could guide and inform responses to Maori offending throughout the whole social services sector?

G. Conclusion

To the extent that this paper, and indeed, this conference, has traded on a perceived distinction between government agencies, and community/ volunteer organisations involved in the delivery of youth justice services, any distinction must be located within a discourse on youth offending that is inclusive, collaborative, realistic, and hopefully optimistic.

Government agencies and community sector groups must be partners in the youth justice "mission", and seek to collaborate at the highest level. The collaboration continuum diagram (see above) places "interdependent" as the highest descriptor of collaborative working. Interdependence means each collaborating organisation, or sector, or individual, recognises and respects the others' strengths and weaknesses. Each understands that it must depend on the others in order to make sense of the common project and to give it the best chance of being successful.

The complexity of the youth justice mission mirrors the complex nature of the individuals and families that are its subject. Youth workers, psychologists, psychiatrists, educationalists, health workers, social workers, mentors, researchers, policymakers, funders, youth aid police, corrections staff, judges, youth advocates, teachers, cultural leaders, youth role models, and the young people themselves must all strive to imagine themselves "inside the tent" of youth justice. This is the fourth zone on the collaboration continuum that asks all parties to create a common identity — an identity which does not subsume or distort an organisation's individual image of itself but which creates a new collaborative identity, in the same way that a marriage, or an orchestra, or a rugby team creates a new collaborative identity.

I began this paper by calling for community sector groups to have primacy over government agencies in the delivery of youth justice services. By this I mean that, from a young offender's point of view, it must be their community that is holding them accountable, and their community that cares enough to want them restored to it as a re-integrated, law abiding individual. Government must recognise that it depends on the community to deliver the best accountability, the best restoration and the best rehabilitation; and that the community depends on government to do all that it can to make these outcomes happen. If we are talking about delivery services to young offenders, victims and their families, then it is the community that is on the front line. It is the community that has the most to lose. We must not let it (actually ourselves) down.

1 This paper is written in collaboration with Tim Hall, Research Counsel to the Principal Youth Court Judge

2 Judge Andrew Becroft Youth Justice in New Zealand: Future Challenges Paper to the New Zealand Youth Justice Conference 17 — 19 May 2004.

3 See Tina Reid The art of herding cats: collaboration with voluntary organisations Paper for the Collaboration for Success Conference 17 October 2007.

4 Ministry of Justice Youth Justice and Social Sector Service Delivery to the Children and Young People Convicted in relation to the Death of Michael Choy, http://www.justice.govt.nz/pubs/reports/2003/choy-report/index.html.

5 New Zealand Police, National Youth Policing Plan 2005 — 2006, http://www.police.govt.nz/resources/2005/youth-policing-plan/youth-policing-plan.pdf. 30, 34.

6 Majumdar Collaboration Amongst Government Agencies with Special Reference to NZ Social Policy Journal of New Zealand Issue 27 March 2006, 185.

7 Mattessich, Murray-Close, Monsey, Collaboration: What Makes It Work 2nd Edition, Wilder Foundation, Minnesota, 2004, 4.

8 Majumdar Collaboration Amongst Government Agencies with Special Reference to NZ Social Policy Journal of New Zealand Issue 27 March 2006, 184.

9 Ministry of Social Development (2003) Mosaics: Whakaahua Papariki: Key Findings and Good Practice Guide for Regional Co-ordination and Integration Service Delivery, Ministry of Social Development, Wellington.

10 State Services Commission and Ministry of Social Development (2003) Review of the Centre Integrated Service Delivery: Regional Co-ordination: Final Workstream Report. www.ssc.govtnz/roc-isd-final-workstream-report, State Services Commission (2001) Report of the Advisory Group on the Review of the Centre. www.ssc.govt.nz/roc

11 Majumdar Collaboration Amongst Government Agencies with Special Reference to NZ Social Policy Journal of New Zealand Issue 27 March 2006, 195.

12 J Howarth and T Morrison Collaboration, integration and change in children's services: Critical issues and key ingredients, Child Abuse and Neglect 31 (2007) 55 — 69 in Youth Justice Interagency Collaboration: Tool Kit for Youth Justice Managers, Child Youth and Family, 2007.

13 The Children, Young Persons and Their Families Act 1989 s208(a).

14 M Doolan, Work With Young People Who Offend, n102.

15 See New Zealand Police National Youth Policing Plan 2005-2006 29.

16 See Table 1.

17 Tony Saxon Review and Analysis of Youth Justice Custody Placements of Children and Young People under the CYP&F Act 1989 Project Phase One Final Report Ministry of Social Development, December 2006 17.

18 Jin Chong, Police apprehension rates for 14-16 yr olds 1995 — 2006 by offence type, 2007, Ministry of Justice, unpublished.

19 Graveson, Police Involvement in Juvenile Crime Prevention — Australia and New Zealand, Melbourne, October 2002 3.

20 Jin Chong, Youth Justice Statistics in New Zealand 1992 - 2006, August 2007, Ministry of Justice 52.

21 Resolution is the method by which Police deal with an offender. It does not provide information on the number of convictions.

22 Refers to intention to charge (ITC) FGCs.

23 Refers to alternative actions (diversion).

24 Police issue a formal warning.

25 The resolution category of 'Other' indicates that the offence was resolved, but none of the specified resolution actions are recorded as having occurred. This could be for a variety of reasons, such as the death of the alleged offender, the mental condition of the alleged offender, or the offender already being in custody for a more serious offence.

26 Bernberg, Jon Gunnar and Marvin D Krohn (2003) Labelling, Life Chances, and Adult Crime: The Direct and Indirect Effects of Official Intervention in Adolescence on Crime in Early Adulthood. Criminology, 41(4), 1287-1318; Criminological Highlights, August 2004, Vol. 6 No. 5, Item 3.

27 Bernberg, Jon Gunnar and Marvin D Krohn (2003) Labelling, Life Chances, and Adult Crime: The Direct and Indirect Effects of Official Intervention in Adolescence on Crime in Early Adulthood, n 55.

28 Explained under Question 7 of this paper.

29 Ministry ofJustice Youth Offending Teams e-flash 20 Hamilton Alternative Action Project, http://justicedev/youth-justice/e-flash/e-flash%2020.pdf

30 Ministry of Justice Youth Offending Teams e-flash 20 Hamilton Alternative Action Project, http: //justicedev/youth-justice/e-flash/e-flash%2020.pdf, 3,4.

31 CYPFA 1989 s245(1)(c)

32 Judge F McElrea, New Zealand Youth Court; A Model for Development in other Courts? Paper prepared for the National Conference of District Court Judges, Rorotua, 6-9 April 1994.

33 Jin Chong Youth Justice Statistics in New Zealand 1995 — 2006 Ministry of Justice 2007 52.

34 38.7% of all youth apprehensions in 2006, down from 55.9% in 2002.

35 28.7% of all youth apprehensions in 2006, up from 16.1% in 2002.

36 Jin Chong, Police apprehension rates for 14-16 yr olds 1995 — 2006 by offence type, 2007, Ministry of Justice, unpublished.

37 New Zealand Police National Youth Policing Plan 2005-2006 Office of the Commissioner 2005 9.

38 New Zealand Police National Youth Policing Plan 2005-2006 Office of the Commissioner 2005 33.

39 New Zealand Police National Youth Policing Plan 2005-2006 Office of the Commissioner 2005 33.

40 Maxwell, Robertson, Kingi, Morris & Cunningham, Achieving Effective Outcomes in Youth Justice, Ministry of Social Development, February 2004, 192.

41 Maxwell, Robertson, Kingi, Morris & Cunningham, Achieving Effective Outcomes in Youth Justice, Ministry of Social Development, February 2004, 6.

42 Specific learning difficulties

43 Maxwell, Robertson, Kingi, Morris and Cunningham, Achieving Effective Outcomes in Youth Justice: An Overview of Findings Ministry of Social Development February 2004.

44 Maxwell et al 2004, 12.

45 Maxwell et al 2004, 13.

46 Maxwell et al 2004, 13.

47 Maxwell et al 2004, 16.