‘Less work, more street kids’

Press, 8 January 1983, Page 6

‘Less work, more street kids’

PA ' Wellington The problem of street kids is likely to get worse as unemployment remains high and many households come under increasing financial pressure, a Government report has concluded. The report, “Review of Literature on Street Kids," was prepared by the Justice Department’s Planning and Development Division and incorporates research material from .Britain and the United States.

It found that in spite of different circumstances and methods of dealing with street kids in the three countries, a number of important common conclusions could be reached.

Generally street kids, or children and teen-agers who have run away from home, were not psychiatrically disturbed, mentally sub-normal or highlv delinquent, the report. . released yesterday, said.

A solution of their problems rested generally with

both the family and the young person. Incarceration usually compounded the stresses placed on the young people who themselves preferred dealing with nonofficial sources of help. “Considering the increase in the numbers of family breakdowns, single-parent families and the unemployed and the increasing stress financial pressures are placing on many households, the problem of runaway or homeless youth is likely to get worse,” the long report said.

If newspaper reports accurately reflected reality, the street kid problem in New Zealand was centred mainly in South Auckland involving working-class Pacific Islanders and Maoris aged between, 12 and 16, the report said. Many of the young people were resorting to petty theft and shoplifting to survive. The main official response to the problem had been police removing the young

people from the streets, delivering them into the care of the Social Welfare authorities, or simply returning them to their parents, the report said. “Unfortunately, in the absence of any other agency to remove kids from the streets, what is basically a family or social problem is transformed by the police intervention into a legal one,” the report said.

In all three countries reviewed, the police were empowered to detain young people for activities which would not render them detainable if they were adults.

In a forword to the report, the director of the Planning and Development Division, Mr M. P. Smith, said it was unlikely the Justice Deparment would pursue any sort of preventive work with street kids. However, it was still imperative that the department was aware of the implications that the street kid

situation, especially in Auckland. had for the New Zealand criminal justice system. • Social problems were increasingly becoming the responsibility of Government departments other than social welfare, he said.

The report said that most commentators in the United States now believed children usually ran away from home because of family problems or social problems. “Individual reasons cited in American literature of the 1930 s to the 1950 s to explain runaway episodes include parental neglect or abuse, sexual abuse, single parent homes, differential treatment of siblings by parents, the attraction of life on the streets, youngsters’ maturation, over-protective parents, inadequate parental supervision, and youngsters thrown out because of unruliness.” the report said. Given the often complex parent-child relationship, most American commentators now believed the legal-

judicial-police approach to be wholly inappropriate. “Runaway houses." run largely by committed volunteers, ' were a favoured response to the problem of street kids in the United States, the report said. The primary aim of many of the houses, which often employed professionals from social work and psychology fields, was to get the young person back to his family. Similar houses in Auckland and Christchurch appeared to be in great demand, thus attesting to the basic appeal of small, highly personalised schemes run usually by individuals ethnically similar to the young people, the report said. "Their apparent success, the fact that they are in demand, could also be- seen as pointing to a fundamental feature of runaway youth — no matter how desperate they are. they will generally refuse shelter unless it is offered on their own terms," the report said..