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July 04, 2023
Testoterone brigade adds to Oranga Tamariki woes
Adam Gifford
Posted On July 4, 2023
A veteran social worker and critic of Oranga Tamariki says bringing in the testosterone brigade won’t fix the problems with the care and protection and youth justice facilities.
Oranga Tamariki head Chappie Te Kani has brought in former police commissioner Mike Bush to take charge of the residences, and one of his first tasks was dealing with the weekend stand-off where five youths spent 30 hours on the roof of the 40-bed Korowai Manaaki facility in Wiri.
Paora Crawford Moyle says there’s a range of social and familial reasons that young people end up in such facilities, but an authoritarian approach has never worked.
“These kids have already been through the frigging mill and I can’t stand the likes of (Chappie) Te Kani and (Kelvin) Davis who think they’ve got it down pat and know these young people. You will always get the ignorance that go ‘they’re all criminal, Maori, dumb, lazy. All of that is just racial hatred and they do knot understand the lives these kids live and the reasons they come through the doors,” she says.
Paora Crawford Moyle says there are many more harmful things going on in society than the damage done by a group of young people protesting the conditions of their imprisonment.
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