Bootcamp re-offending rate revealed: 80% allegedly offended within the year

Friday, 8 August 2025

Most of the teenagers who took part in the military-style bootcamp pilot went on to allegedly re-offend within the year, the ministry has confirmed. But that doesn’t mean the Government views this as a failed experiment.

The Government had, for months, refused to confirm how many of the bootcamp participants had gone on to allegedly re-offend. But on Friday, a week after the pilot finished, Oranga Tamariki deputy chief executive Iain Chapman confirmed the alleged re-offending rate sat at about 80%.

He said two participants had not re-offended. He said he’d met them recently and they had gone on to make impressive progressive to improve their own lives.

But the Labour Party says that result isn’t good enough.

“That is an absolute failure. The Government was told the bootcamps would not work, and they didn’t listen to the experts on it… They went ahead anyway, wasting so much taxpayer money,” Prime said.

On average across the entire youth justice system, 80% of young people go on to re-offend within a year of their release. This result, from the Government’s flagship youth justice programme, shows no top line improvement to the re-offending rate.

But Chapman said the outcomes from the pilot had been better than that figure indicated.

He said the pilot was set up for serious repeat youth offenders, who were some of the most challenging young people in Oranga Tamariki’s care.

Where they have allegedly re-offended, he said the issues had been less severe than would typically be expected if they’d gone through alternative youth justice programmes.

In one case, he said one of the boys had effectively turned his life around.

“He’s deep into his sport. The coaching, the disciplines, is really, really paying off there. He’s choosing to have his tattoos removed, which I think is quite remarkable for a young man to make the decision to leave the past behind,” he said.

This Government budgeted $5.1 million to set up the Military Style Academy (MSA) pilot.

It took 10 serious young offenders who volunteered to be part of the pilot group. They were based at a youth justice facility in Palmerston North which had been refurbished with military motifs and included physical training facilities, as well as military-style uniforms.

They remained in custody there for three months, and then took part in a nine-month programme with a mentor and social workers in the community.

During the community phase, one of the young men died.

Children’s Minister Karen Chhour has since introduced a bill to continue the MSA programme, including giving the Youth Court power to force young people to participate in it.

“Zero re-offending was never going to be realistic, but the goal of this programme has always been to provide meaningful supports and an opportunity for these young people to make better choices,” she said.

That bill was expected to pass in time for a new cohort to start next year.