Wellington, May 27 NZPA - Early intervention, rather than severe response, is needed to tackle youth crime, submitters to the so-called "boot camp bill" said today.

The Youth Courts Jurisdiction and Orders Amendment Bill seeks to provide the court with new sentencing options ranging from tight supervision to a three-month stretch in a military-style camp.

It would also extend the court's jurisdiction to include 12 and 13-year-olds who committed serious crimes and allow the court to issue parenting orders.

The boot camp aspect of the bill has been widely criticised as potentially being counter-productive in straightening out young offenders.

At a social services select committee meeting in Parliament today, Foundation for Youth Development founder Graeme Dingle and EdgeLifeskills director Stephen Boxer co-submitted that they supported the bill's intent, but emphasi sed the need for preventative programmes.

The way to reduce youth offending was to identify those at risk early and work to give them a sense of self-discipline and personal responsibility.

Mr Dingle said it was risky to try to address the needs of 12- and 13-year-olds when older teenagers with problematic behaviour were present.

He also joined the chorus of people who have said boot camps didn't serve their purpose when it came to turning around young offenders.

"It's actually the antithesis of what we are trying to do," he said.

Mr Boxer agreed that while discipline was needed in dealing with at-risk young people, taking a straight military approach could be counter-productive.

He said while some military-type techniques were successful, a much wider and personal approach was needed than "just barking at these young guys".

Some of the children he was dealing with had dropped out of school as young as 11 or 12.

"We need to do better at that point to identify who those problem children are and what's going on within the family, and start tackling it from that end."

Both said more funding was needed in that area if social costs were to be lowered further down the track.

Speaking on behalf of the Youth Justice Independent Advisory Group (Yjiag), Dr Ian Lambie said the bill would provide the Youth Court with further options in dealing with child and youth offenders -- an area where present law fell short.

While Yjiag endorsed mu ch of the bill, it pointed out what it considered to be technical downfalls in some clauses.

Dr Lambie also emphasised the need for better funding of successful prevention and supervision programmes.

Properly targeted parenting education programmes were suggested as an effective measure to both assist parents and reduce a child's offending behaviour.

Such programmes would, however, be ineffective in addressing problems of high risk groups if they could not be suitably tailored and intensive.

Yjiag also raised concerns about the potential effect of more severe responses to offending by young people.

Research showed the more severe the response, and the longer a young person was drawn into the court and justice system, the more likely they were to continue offending.

Social Development Minister Paula Bennett has maintained the military-style "activity camps" would be fundamentally different from past models and just one of many new options available to the courts for dealing with the worst young offenders.

NZPA