Saturday is good news day
It looks like Saturday is good news day. At least, today is. Radio New Zealand has two reports up today:
The first, helping rangatahi with parents in prison, is really important because imprisoning a criminal doesn't just punish that one person. They are being taken out of a family and a community, and, the really important bit: the criminal's children are being punished for their parent's crimes.
This is perhaps the biggest problem with politicians playing "tough on crime": the "collateral damage". It's easy to throw people in prison, but if you're not addressing the causes of crime, you're not solving the problem. One thing that keeps coming up in the causes of crime: Adverse Childhood Events. Having a parent imprisoned is a pretty traumatic event for a child or young person.
So a programme that has people going in and working with young people who have a parent in prison, providing them support during a very vulnerable and traumatic time, is a Very Good Thing that might actually go some way to reducing crime rates long term. More importantly, this could see a lot of vulnerable youth managing to overcome the traumatic events of their childhood and go on to build good lives for themselves and their own children.
The second, the outdoors scheme - this does not sound like a boot camp, that's the important bit. This sounds like a constructive programme, building kids up, helping them develop connections and confidence. It's hard to know from what is reported here whether this will help to reduce youth crime. For me the key quote is this:
"We're fortunate enough to work with many - 5000 - young people every year across Aotearoa, and often young people who aren't excelling in more conventional education environments.
"To be able to show them that they can succeed, that they can be confident, that they can be great team players, it's just a normal experience. It's why we do what we do."
A lot of what I see is men coming out of prison who did not have the confidence, connections, positive role models, and success in education when they were young. So if people can step in and make sure vulnerable kids are getting that before they get in trouble, then good.