It is grabbing headlines. It will not matter to National that it smacks of the party desperately scrabbling around in a lucky-dip drawer of odd-sock old policies to find something relevant to the Hamilton West by-election.
If the party truly thought its tired old boot camp souffle could rise again it might have put more effort into the details. Instead, it has come up with a two-and-a-half-page document which looks very similar to the policy produced under Bill English in 2017. (National had tried a shorter camp programme in 2010 which had little impact on recidivism.)
The 2017 policy was widely slammed by critics who said it would be ineffective. Nothing has changed since to make it more likely to succeed.
But it fits with the National Party rhetoric about being tough on crime, and on ram-raids in particular. And of course, Hamilton is one of the places where ram-raids have been an issue.
The party does not seem to have heard police saying earlier this month there had been a decline in ram-raids. Maybe the enthusiasm for these burglaries is starting to peter out, and perhaps community policing and work being done in community organisations and iwi is having some effect.
Although there has been a recent spike in youth crime from the ram-raids, generally youth offending has been steadily in decline since at least 2014.
When you are peddling the tough on crime mantra, such details do not matter.
It is difficult to see how forcing a youth serious offender, someone who has committed two serious offences such as a ram raid, other aggravated burglary, serious assault or aggravated robbery, into a setting away from their community with other like-minded youngsters for up to a year is much different from prison. The boot camp proposal would involve intakes of up to 60 15- to 17-year-olds a year.
The risk of such camps becoming a breeding ground for future criminals seems high.
The new policy has also meant National has done some back flipping on use of electronic monitoring bracelets, now supporting them for children as young as 10 or 11. In what is becoming a familiar pattern of his leadership, Christopher Luxon has changed his tune on it, as has rising star Erica Stanford. Her dead rat swallowing over it was cringe-making.
Critics have pointed out how easy it is to remove electronic bracelets. Imagine what kudos kids would get from their mates for that. When it does nothing to stop crime, what will be the next big idea? Microchipping?
That might sound far-fetched, but as we head into the silly season of an election year, the scene is set for more and more extreme ideas to be foisted on innocent prospective voters as National, Act and New Zealand First duke it out for who can be the toughest on crime.
It would be refreshing to see all parties paying more than lip service to what might actually work with youth offenders.
They could revisit the 2018 discussion paper on preventing youth offending from former Prime Ministerial science adviser Sir Peter Gluckman, It’s never too early, never too late.
Its emphasis is on early intervention including parental support and education in the pre-school years. It says youth interventions work best when all aspects of functioning are addressed. It talks of ‘‘well-structured, well-planned, well implemented and carefully evaluated, intensive home-based programmes which provide care to youth and their families and target individual, family, peer, school and community elements that underlie or contribute to problematic behaviour’’.
What a surprise, it is not as sexy or simple as boot camps or electronic bracelets for children. Let’s stop cynically pretending it is.
