NZDF documents reveal serious concerns about youth offender boot camps

New Zealand Defence Force (NZDF) documents warned the Government in January that military-style training does not work for complex participants and has previously resulted in serious mental and physical harm of defence personnel, 1News can reveal.

It also revealed correspondence with Defence Minister Judith Collins saying comparing the eight-week NZDF Limited Service Volunteer (LSV) programme to its proposed 12-month youth offender military academies was "not accurate" and could create "public misunderstanding" about NZDF's role in the programme.

In documents released to 1News under the Official Information Act, the NZDF said in a briefing to Collins that the LSV scheme has experienced a "range of complex challenges".

The Ministry of Social Development (MSD) found it "difficult" to generate the right number of trainees to match investment and so provided more trainees who would not have previously been considered appropriate for the scheme prior to 2018.

This caused a "significant" increase in the "complexity", or mental readiness to commit to military training, of LSV trainees, the briefing said.

Prior to 2018, the NZDF deployed capability for a ratio of up to 30% trainee complexity on any course.

"Where the complexity ratio of trainees on a course is above 30%, the course graduation rate falls sharply.

"More seriously, the risk to other trainees and NZDF staff spiked to the point where in 2022/23, with the complexity ratio of trainees rising to 50 and 60% in some cases, 10 NZDF staff suffered serious mental harm including several cases of suicidal ideation."

The number of physical assaults on staff also increased, causing decreased morale, wellbeing, and retention among personnel, the briefing read.

The proposed youth offender military academies would have a 100% complexity rate.

In a statement, the NZDF said it had worked with MSD on safety issues and that a system was in place which had seen increased assignments of social workers and a "more robust" selection process for trainees.

Police Minister Mark Mitchell told 1News the boot camps, which will start with a pilot programme in a youth justice facility next month, will be tailored "entirely differently" than the LSV programme.

"It is a younger cohort, so there are social services, iwi and hapū, community groups, and government agencies that are very experienced and good at dealing with these young offenders."

He said defence would still play a major role with the programme.

"They've stepped up, there's 30 NZDF personnel that are currently involved in supporting our youth military academy."

Labour leader Chris Hipkins said the Government "absolutely" needed to consider the concerns the NZDF is raising.

"When all of the evidence shows that it's not going to work and it could do more harm than good, that's something that Government should really pay attention to."

He said there was merit in some of what the Government was proposing, however.

The second nine months of the boot camp programme was based on evidence assembled from programmes the previous government had put in place, Hipkins said.

"That's about intensive wraparound support for young people in the environment that they live in, rather than taking them away from that environment.

"What we've got to do is focus on making sure that we've got intensive wraparound support for these young people so that they stop offending and recognise that the lives they're coming from often have a huge amount of dysfunction in them."

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