THE PROBLEMS OF YOUTH by ROI TE PUNGA District Probation Officer, Auckland Auckland city has the largest Maori population of any city in New Zealand. This is understandable since Auckland is geographically situated in the centre with large concentrations of Maori population in Northland and to the south, in Waikato and Rotorua-Bay of Plenty areas. Furthermore, there has been a drift to this city because of lack of employment opportunities in rural districts for young Maoris in local villages and towns, and there is of course the attraction of the city with its numerous diversions of various types. The change from living in a Maori village where life is leisurely, and to a degree semi-communal, to living in the city is considerable and calls for rapid re-adjustment to vastly different circumstances. Some young Maoris do not succeed in making this re-adjustment and eventually appear before the Court for various offences against the law. Research is being done now by Government Departments who are interested in finding a solution to the problems involved, but such research is a long term project and the findings may not be available for some time. This being the case all that I can do is to express opinions based on cases with which I am familiar. Maori offenders can be broadly placed into three groups based on the types of background from which they come. First, there are those who have been brought up in Maori villages and who have had little contact with the pakeha way of life. These young people are bi-lingual with Maori as their mother tongue and English as a secondary language. Many of them when speaking English think in Maori and this can give an impression to a casual observer that they are slow-thinking. The tempo of life in a Maori village is more leisurely than in a city. To a Maori youth from this environment work is a means of getting money for his simple daily needs and the need “to keep up with the Jones” is foreign to him. His whole attitude to money is different from that of a pakeha and he is more inclined to let tomorrow take care of itself. Work in rural districts, particularly in the winter months, is restricted and so he migrates to Auckland. Probably he has some relatives here, but they are living in overcrowded houses and have no room for him and so he finds board where he probably shares a room with several others in the poorer parts of the city.