Project for High-Risk Teens Gets Underway

A major initiative aimed at reducing youth reoffending is being set up in New Zealand as a joint initiative between two government agencies ~ the Departments of Corrections and Child, Youth and Family Services.

The pilot Reducing Youth Offending Programme, which will target offenders between 14 and 18 years who are at risk of becoming serious adult offenders, is on track to “go live” by June 2003.

“The Programme is designed to help stop young people from developing entrenched adult offending patterns. It is not for young people committing minor offences, or for teenagers who have made one-off mistakes, but for those who are at risk of becoming serious adult offenders,” says project sponsor Jared Mullen, General Manager Policy Development, Department of Corrections.

Each young person will receive a customised programme based on Multi-Systemic Therapy (MST). MST works with both the offender and their family, and the programme targets other influences in their lives, such as school and peers. The programme involves a case worker working intensively with the family for up to six months. The case worker is the primary deliverer of services which are available 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

“The programme will be a condition of Supervision (a community-based sentence) and the primary desired outcome will be that the youth has abstained from offending, or there has been a reduction in the number or seriousness of offences committed,” says Jared.

The programme will be piloted until June 2006 in two centres, Auckland in the North Island and Christchurch in the South Island. It will be independently evaluated and results reported back to government in September 2005.

Caption:

New Zealand Dept of Corrections Chief Executive Mark Byers discusses progress with members of the Reducing Youth Offending Programme project team.