Former Waitākere Mayor Sir Bob Harvey says putting youth offenders in military academies is a "crazy idea" and we should be putting parents in boot camps instead.
National has proposed to send "serious" youth offenders to military academies to help combat youth crime. It would apply to offenders between ages 15 and 17 who have committed a serious offence at least twice including ram-raids, other aggravated burglaries or serious assaults.
Other young offenders could be subject to electronic monitoring or intensive supervision under the policy.
Speaking on AM's panel, Sir Harvey said the boot camps were a "crazy" and "bad" idea.
"They never worked and they're never going to work," he said. "I'd put the parents in boot camp because that's where it's kind of starting."
"It's about society looking at itself [and] understanding the real causes."
He said many parents of children who are committing ramraids don't know their whereabouts.
Former National MP Paula Bennett supports the idea, telling AM we should take lessons from National's previous boot camps, which she said worked for a few attendees but wasn't run long enough.
"At the moment we are waiting until they age out so they can go to jail, which is awful, we've got to try, we've got to do it and I personally have a lot of faith in the way that the defence force would run it."
Boot camps were used under Sir John Key's Government. A 2016 evaluation found 84 percent of participants went on to re-offend after the programme. However, the frequency of re-offending dropped 47 percent and the seriousness of re-offending dropped 57 percent.
But a 2018 report on youth offending by Professor Sir Peter Gluckman, the then-Prime Minister's Chief Science Advisor, found "boot camps do not work" and similar programmes "have been shown to increase crime".
However, Sir Harvey said there are bigger checks and balances we can look at than boot camps.
"I just think it's a horror story," he said.
Watch the full interview above.
