Brendon Crompton: Blue Light CEO on the crackdown on young offenders

A crack down on persistent young offenders. 

New Ministry of Justice data shows a 19% increase in children and young people receiving orders or adult sentences in 2024, compared to the previous year. 

There's a 16% rise for Māori tamariki and rangatahi. 

Blue Light CEO Brendon Crompton told Ryan Bridge these are children who have likely gone through the youth system and have continued to offend. 

He says to keep the community safe Youth Aid has no choice but put them in the District Court. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Crackdown on youth offending has been reflected on paper. This morning,
new Ministry of Justice stats show a nineteen percent increase
in the number of young people receiving orders or adult
sentences last year. The figures appear to have returned to
pre COVID light levels, which may be common sense. Finally,
prevailing Blue Light CEO Brendan Compton is with me this morning.

Speaker 2 (00:20):
Brean, A good morning, Good morning, Ryan.

Speaker 1 (00:23):
Is this a good thing?

Speaker 2 (00:25):
Well, I think if we just unpack our the youth
justice system works. When a young person offends, they go
to a family group conference. At their conferences, the family,
the offender, hopefully the victim and the kids are lawyer
and the police Youth Aid officer. So the police Youth
Aid officer is the critical part of this stuff in
front of you because they are essentially advocating for the

(00:46):
community and for the victim of what sentence that young
person should get. And so there's all those ranges you
can see from supervision of activity, which is a community
based program that we specialize in, right through to the
supervision with residence, which's only that'simoth three months in their
youth residence, which is a youth prison and so if
you're getting sixteen and seventeen year olds who have been

(01:06):
right through the youth justice system and then are continuing
to offend, especially at a high level like ram range,
which we're called aggravated robberies, the youth has no choice
but to put them up to what we call the
district court where they can then get an adult sentence
of imprisonment. Really just to keep the community safe.

Speaker 1 (01:22):
Which is what's happening. And that's as you say, I mean,
you work with those who are at the lower end
of the spectrum, but for those who are repeatedly at
the other end, you've got to do something. And clearly
they are.

Speaker 2 (01:34):
Yeah, and all the worldwide, the statistics show that most
young people offend will grow out of it their brain
the brain brain changes and you become out of it.
But there are that sort of five to ten percent,
which we call persistent youth offenders, who will offend well
into their adult life. And so regardless what programs we
deliver at a lower level, they'll just continue on with
their offending. And so that's tenth end up in the

(01:56):
district court and end up with adult sentences.

Speaker 1 (01:58):
Which is what so for that when people say, I
know all that these people need, these young people need
is wrap around services upon wraparound services upon wrap around services.
Actually that for some kids you can't. There's only so
much wrapping you can do.

Speaker 2 (02:14):
Absolutely, and people talk about you know, I've loved it
for twenty five years as former police officer and you've
justice manager. Is that often people to fault us out. Well,
it's about the family and finner which need to support them. Well,
for many of our kids, the family funder are the problem.
They live in chaos, criminality, drugs, violence, family violence. But
there's a period of time with their young people and

(02:34):
need ben need to be away from their family to
fix themselves. And at the same time we need to
work with the family. So there's two different things happening
at the same time.

Speaker 1 (02:41):
Yeah, Brandon, interesting stuff. Thanks so much for coming on
the show and for your analysis. Brendan Crompton is the
Blue Lights CEO twenty minutes away from seven on News
Talk set b I am everybody has those numbers. It's
a nineteen percent increase in the number of young people
receiving orders or adult sentences last year. So that's kids
who are doing really bad stuff getting the adult service,
the adult sentences that a lot of people think they deserve.

Speaker 2 (03:05):
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