The coalition is considering extending the time some teenagers spend in boot camp residential facilities if it's likely they'll reoffend when sent back into the community.
Next year the government will consider legislation focused on serious young offending, and look to make boot camps a permanent feature of the law so that judges have the power to send youths to the programme as part of sentencing.
The pilot that has been running this year has been voluntary and consisted of three months in a youth residential facility followed by nine months in the community.
The ten teenagers who took part in the pilot transitioned into the community in October.
In recent weeks one of them died in a car crash in Tirau and two others absconded - one from the tangi of their friend who died in the crash and the other the day after the funeral.
Both teenagers have since been caught by police after allegedly being involved in a carjacking with two other teenagers, where a machete was wielded.
Christopher Luxon says the government is working on new legislation covering boot camps. Photo: RNZ / Angus Dreaver
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon says the legislation would allow for the boot camp residential facility to be used for between three and 12 months, but the government hasn't "locked and loaded" exactly how long it might be.
"We would have the flexibility to extend the residential period if we felt the individual wasn't ready to go back into the community, but we haven't locked and loaded on a discussion around that, but it gives us flexibility to have a longer residential component if we think that's in the interests of the individual," Luxon told reporters on Tuesday.
The youths in question at boot camps are the "toughest most persistent serious young offenders", he said.
But "as hard as it is", Luxon said he disagrees with opposition to the boot camps, adding, "why wouldn't we try and do something different".
Chris Hipkins says there are alternatives to boot camps that the government should be trying. Photo: RNZ / Samuel Rillstone
Labour leader Chris Hipkins says the point is that boot camps are no different to what's been tried before under National governments.
"The very definition of stupidity is doing the same thing over and again, and expecting to get a different result.
"Boot camps don't work, they've proven to not work and saying you're going to do more of them and do them for longer is just going to prove the same thing," he said.
The Prime Minister believes the success of boot camps is having fewer victims of serious and violent crime.
"Saving one person from that is a fantastic thing."
While some will make the choice to reoffend, as is the case already with two of the boot camp participants who absconded, there are others who have found work or gone into training, Luxon said.
Hipkins accepts youth justice facilities are needed in the short-term for the most hardened teenagers, but says there are alternatives that need to be considered in the long-term.
He insists the work Labour was doing in government to provide wrap-around support for not only the youth, but also their family, is a better solution.
"If you really want to turn those kids' lives around you have to deal with the broader dysfunction in their lives, which includes working with their families."
Hipkins said their programme had a 75 percent success rate - the Coalition's boot camps currently have an 80 percent success rate, with 20 percent reoffending.
In both cases he said it was "early days" with the results but evidence from around New Zealand and the world is that "boot camps don't work and when you put intensive support around kids and their families it does work".
