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The roll out of more Rangatahi Courts will depend on hard data about whether the current marae-based youth courts are having an impact on offending and rehabilitation.
Courts Minister Chester Borrows yesterday released a qualitative assessment of the pilot programme, which is running on 10 marae round the country.
He says they are helping some young Māori offenders to connect with their cultural identity, engage with their local marae community and find positive role models, and engage better with the court process.
“I’m really pleased with the way that indications are showing that we’ve got every expectation of even greater success. As far as rolling it out further, I really want to know the numbers on how that’s going first. I think this government feels very warmly towards rangatahi courts and we think we’re gonna see better results in the future but we’ve got to be able to base on that on something before we go further down the track”. He says
Chester Borrows says arrests of young Māori have fallen almost 15 per cent over the last five years but they remain badly overrepresented in youth offending statistics.
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