Karen Chhour: Children's minister says tougher consequences are keeping youths away from crime.

Knowledge of tougher consequences is thought to be keeping more young people away from crime. 

The Government has achieved its goal of a 15% reduction in serious and persistent youth offenders - four years early. 

Children's Minister Karen Chhour says it's partially down to young people believing they can't avoid accountability for their actions. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Government crackdown on crime appears to be paying major dividends.
By the way, Mark's back with us. He's out of hospital.
He's been in hospital. He's been in hospital quite a lot.
And I don't think I'm breaking any secrets and telling
you that. But he's out and he's good, and he's
back with Jinny after eight o'clock. Now, the government's crackdown
on crime appears to be paying major dividends. We've got
a sixteen percent reduction in serious and persistent offending for
young people now. The target, if you remember, was fifteen

(00:22):
percent by twenty twenty nine, so they've beaten it by
four years. Karen Shaw's the Minister for Children and is
back with us. Karen, very good morning.

Speaker 2 (00:29):
To you morning. How's it going very well?

Speaker 1 (00:32):
Indeed, are you four years early because you made up
some random number to make yourself look good or is
this actually really good news?

Speaker 2 (00:39):
This is actually really good news. We've been tracking it
quite closely and making sure that this is a trend
of going down and it's not just a blip. And
now we know for sure at the sixteen percent mark,
we know for sure that we're on the right track
and it's heading downwards, and this represents less victims than

(00:59):
our community you might. So it's a positive for everyone,
each and every one of these young people that's no
longer offending. It is no longer hurting or harming someone
in our community. The harm is no less painful for
the victim. If it's a fourteen year old or a
twenty five year old, callting that harm. And so we're
sending a clear message that this is not okay, and

(01:19):
it's getting out there.

Speaker 1 (01:21):
How have you done it? And with who? I mean,
why are they not reoffending all of a sudden.

Speaker 2 (01:26):
Some of it is young people no longer believe that
they can avoid this accountability. I'm hearing it all across
our communities that they know that there's going to be
consequences if that court. Other parts of it are better
coordination between courts, autoing a tamariki and police. And then
we've taken some of the learnings from the military style

(01:48):
academy pilot and put better investment into transitional support for
young offenders coming out of youth justice. And we're investing
in a number of safety and quality improvements to facilities
and you've justice residences. So there's a lot of work
that's been going on in the background, all around rehabilitation
and making sure we helping these young people be the

(02:10):
best versions of themselves. This is good for them and
it's good for our community.

Speaker 1 (02:14):
So sixteen percent is that low hanging fruit? Is there
more where this came from?

Speaker 2 (02:20):
Oh? Absolutely, We're not going to stop here. This is
just really where we're on the trajectory of tackling this
and I'm really proud of the work that has been
done by the teams across all our agencies to accomplish this.

Speaker 1 (02:36):
Fantastic Karen, good to catch up with you appreciate it
very much. Karen, Sure, sixteen percent reduction. They said they
do fifteen by twenty twenty nine. They've done sixteen by
twenty twenty five. Can't argue with that.

Speaker 2 (02:44):
Can you?

Speaker 1 (02:45):
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