escalating violence in our community Become a member of the Sensible Sentencing Trust

Mouseover links or blue arrows below for full page descriptions

Tough Love Nips Crime in the Bud

This article is from the Sunday Star Times, March 3rd 2002. The photo of Angus Dellow is from Hawkes Bay Today. We at Sensible Sentencing were privileged to have Angus come and address us on his extremely successful youth crime prevention programme during our yearly conference at Upper Mohaka, North of Napier in February.

It needs to be emphasised that whatever happens to each youth offender on this programme is primarily driven by their own personal choices. Angus always approaches them initially when they come to his attention and talks to them, letting them know that if they do not offend further there will be no punishment. And the ones that do make the right choices end up being rewarded. It is an incentive based system.

YOUNG offenders are being made to clean police cell ceilings with their own spit and pick up rubbish wearing bright orange jackets in a controversial boot-camp scheme to cut youth crime. The scheme aims to humiliate and publicly shame repeat offenders - they are forced to do press-ups, if they play up, as they fill rubbish bags in playgrounds and other public areas.

Police running the programme say youth crime has halved since the scheme began in Napier about two years ago. Senior constable Angus Dellow outlined the programme to MPs at a Sensible Sentencing Trust meeting in Napier a fortnight ago. Act MP Stephen Franks said Dellow told the meeting that he handcuffed the most difficult youth who refused to take part, while lunch consisted of bread and water.

Franks said: "The bread and water and the handcuffs are saying that the system is serious. We need to restore shame as a normal social sanction."

In the past two years, about 100 Napier youths caught by police for crimes ranging from shoplifting to an $80,000 burglary have been on the one-day courses, which run in weekends and school holidays, with eight picking up rubbish more than once.

Police sign contracts with the youths and must have parental consent, often as a result of family group conferences. Not all offenders do the courses and police stress participants are screened for suitability. Dellow said it was so successful he had been unable to fill a scheme since the summer holidays, when he ran two detention programmes. Youth crime had dropped from 1500 cases two years ago to 750 offences. "The message is, "I hate this, it hurts" and the kids don't want to go back," he said.

It has the cautious support of inspector Chris Graveson, head of youth aid at the police commissioner's office, who said the number of offences had halved in two years, suggesting the Napier team was doing something right.

But yesterday, a planned photograph of youths in their orange jackets scrubbing graffiti - another police diversion programme for those caught tagging - was canned on the commissioner's orders. Dellow said the aim of the scheme was to keep young people out of the courts. It was a carrot and stick approach, with young offenders being given choices.

And the youth who "chose to reoffend" picked up rubbish for a full day and was banned from talking or the whole group would be punished with press-ups.

Other punishments included cleaning lighter burns off the ceilings of cells with their own spit and scraping chewing gum off footpaths, while smokers had to collect cigarette butts. They also talked to hardened criminals, who warned them off a life of crime.

Graveson said the law allowed police to run "alternative action programmes" which could be wide-ranging and Napier officers were not over-stepping the mark. About 75 to 80% of youth offenders were dealt with through warnings and police diversion, while only about 20% went through the justice system, family group conferences or the youth court, or both.

Hawke's Bay MP Rick Barker said the detention scheme seemed to be working in Napier because of Dellow's involvement and he was unsure if it could be replicated elsewhere.

Constable Duane Grant, the other youth aid officer in Napier, said it was a fair comment that police were doing the role traditionally done by the justice system but they were working within their powers.

"We are like parents and we have to reprimand them. But as soon as the situation lends itself, we can be their friends. I can be your friend or your enemy and I'm comfortable in both roles. We don't want wishy-washy social worker type attitudes because that doesn't work."

Certainly Angus Dellow and his colleagues are onto something here. While it may not work with every single offender, it will turn around the majority.