Emphasises the crucial role of local communities in prevention and reducing escalation of youth crime.

Takes small steps focused on improving existing initiatives and information sharing.

We are not realising the full potential of our world-leading approach to youth justice. The Youth Crime Action Plan needs more ambition. The Plan fails to set concrete goals for many important outcomes which would allow New Zealanders to assess the Government’s progress.

JustSpeak’s own Youth Crime Action Plan would start by extending the youth justice system to include 17-year-olds, and commit to explicit targets for reducing Māori and Pacifika over-representation at all levels of the youth justice system.

The proposed approach to this issue is more of the same: focus on improving existing systems and processes.

We urgently need a step change in our approach. Start by:

recognising that we all need help overcoming instinctive racial biases, and the Police are no exception

investigating on an ongoing basis structural discrimination across the criminal justice system, including ethnic profiling by Police

ensuring resources are available to ensure every young person has access to Alternative Actions, rather than going to Youth Court for minor offences

boosting funding to innovative grassroots approaches to justice such as Rangatahi Courts

further empowering whanau to address offending

expanding Pacifika-, iwi- and Māori-led programmes.

The plan also provides guidance for Police officers to charge young offenders only when custody or bail with conditions is required.

Providing better options for young people to raise issue with Police decision-making and to have decisions reviewed

Introducing regular independent reviews of Police decision-making with regard to young people.

The plan asks youth offending teams to involve community stakeholders in developing local youth crime action plans. However there is no reference to including young people in this process.

The plan promotes improvements to Family Group Conferences including increasing the involvement of victims, community stakeholders, and piloting iwi-led conferences.

ensuring youth are involved in the development of youth crime community action plans

supporting young people with youth advocates at all non-court-ordered Family Group Conferences.

ensuring all young people are represented by youth advocates when they are questioned by police

seriously investigating youth justice procedures involving peers of young people, such as the Red Hook Community Justice Center, where decisions on minor offences are made by other young people.