July 04, 2023
Whole-of-community approach needed to tackle truancy
Outgoing Deputy Police Commissioner Wally Haumaha says truancy and its links to crime needs to be dealt with not just by Police but by the education system, communities, iwi and whānau working together.
The former schoolteacher, who now chairs Te Arawa Education Trust, says the social conditions that help breed crime will remain largely unchanged without Māori input into developing, support and implementing the right approaches to tackle it.
He told Radio Waatea talk host Donna Awatere-Huata that while the spike in crime like ram raids is a real issue, in most cases the young people are already known to the system.
Police have developed programmes to deal with serious and persistent offenders, and since December they had made 214 referrals of kids aged 10 to 14 who have been picked up for crimes like burglary, stealing motor vehicles and robbery.
“179 of those are male, 35 female, but the sad part for me, having developed Maori kaupapa in this organisation to build relationships with iwi entities from north to south, 156 of those kids identify as Maori,” he says.
Mr Haumaha says the problem will get worse if nothing is done before young offenders grow up and start having babies of their own.