Labour’s Manurewa candidate says more police officers is only part of solution to reduce youth crime.
Labour has pledged to add another 300 new police officers by the end of the next term.
Arena Williams says that needs to go hand-in-hand with increased funding for community-based youth offender programmes, such as Kotahi te Whakaaro in south Auckland which provides wrap-around support and refers rangatahi on to other programmes in order to steer them away from crime.
“We need to keep resourcing police and those agencies to be able to make those interventions which have a lasting impact. And Kotahi te Whakaaro has an 85 percent success rate. It’s almost double the comparable youth justice programs. So it is making a difference, but it doesn’t happen overnight and we need to continue to resource those things which do make a difference,” she says.
