By Maggie Tait of NZPA

Wellington, Feb 2 NZPA - Justice Minister Simon Power is defending closing down a programme aimed at preventing troubled youth reoffending, saying it was overly expensive.

The Government yesterday said Te Hurihanga pilot programme in Hamilton would close in four months after three years in operation and Mr Power said it would be replaced by a more cost effective programme.

The community-based treatment programme for male offenders aged between 14 and 17 started in April 2007 and the pilot period was due to end by March 31 but had been given a three-month extension to finish up by June 30.

Only eight of 23 young offenders who started the nine to 18-month programme graduated and five had pulled out. The cost to date has been just over $5 million.

Labour leader Phil Goff said today the programme was a last chance intervention programme for troubled youths and its loss would make the Waikato less safe.

"This programme works. It takes on the small group of offenders who commit the most crimes in our community, and shows that through an intensive programme it can reduce and for many eliminate reoffending," Mr Goff said.

"Police and judges describe it as a 'godsend', the evidence is there of the difference it made for the young people, their families and a safer community."

Mr Goff said an evaluation of the programme said those who worked it thought it worked well, the toughest kids were being targeted, it worked well for Maori, and it filled a gap in the system.

The cost per offender was good value when compared to the overall cost of dealing with each offender through policing, the justice system and time in prison, he said.

Mr Power said the cost for each graduate so far was $630,000 as only eight had finished but Justice Ministry officials put the figure at $171,000 per youth based on an estimated 11 clients a year staying an average of nine months.

"The cost of keeping an offender in prison for two years alone exceeds a programme which was stopping crime and keeping the person out of prison," Mr Goff said.

"Most importantly, intervention means the human and financial costs suffered by victims are avoided."

He said there needed to be more such programmes rather than fewer.

Mr Power said it was not an easy decision to cancel the programme but he did not think it was sustainable.

"In the end I took the view that an alternative programme with a similar focus and learning from the Te Hurihanga programme was the right way to go."

It cost about $100,000 a year to keep an offender in jail but Mr Power said there were other programmes that the troubled youths would be able to go to.

"I am not persuaded that it is the only programme that could do that and I am not persuaded that those costs are the only way to return the investment to make sure people don't end up in prison. The concerning thing about the programme itself wasn't that it wasn't doing what it said it would do, it was just simply a matter of cost...

"Those sort of numbers were out of kilter with any other equivalent programme that I saw."

Mr Power said a good programme could be put in place instead.

"I am hopeful the open tendering process which will occur after we've given the existing programme an extension of three months ... will reflect the ethos and the philosophy of the Te Hurihanga programme but in a more cost effective way."

The high cost was party due to a high staff to youth rate.

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