Tough on crime. Less tough on the causes of crime. Or the results.
National ran hard on law and order. More police, tougher sentences, crack down on youth crime, ram raids — the works. The rhetoric was muscular. The results have been... less so. Turns out "lock 'em up" isn't actually a comprehensive criminal justice policy. Who knew.
The flagship youth crime policy was boot camps for young offenders. Rebranded as "military-style academies" and then "Young Offender Military Academies," these programmes have a long history of not working. International evidence consistently shows they don't reduce reoffending. But they sound tough on talkback radio, which is apparently the point.
The pilot programmes were slow to launch, undersubscribed, and dogged by questions about their effectiveness compared to existing youth justice interventions that actually had evidence behind them. Some of those existing programmes were, naturally, defunded to pay for the boot camps.
Source: Ministry of Justice, NZ Police, international meta-analyses on youth boot camps
National promised 500 additional police officers. Recruitment has been slower than planned, hampered by the same factors affecting every public sector employer: low pay relative to Australia, high living costs, and a limited pool of candidates. Meanwhile, experienced officers continued to leave for better-paying roles across the Tasman. You can't arrest your way out of a staffing crisis.
Source: NZ Police annual reports, Police Association commentary
The government moved to toughen sentences for a range of offences, including increasing maximum penalties and restricting parole eligibility. This approach, predictably, will increase the prison population without strong evidence it reduces crime. New Zealand already has one of the highest incarceration rates in the OECD. The solution, apparently, is to make it higher.
Prison capacity was already under strain. Building more prisons is expensive. The government's answer to this mathematical problem remained unclear.
Source: Department of Corrections, NZ Law Society, JustSpeak analysis
Ram raids and retail crime were the moral panic of the election campaign. After taking office, reported incidents did decline — though this trend had already begun before the election. The government claimed credit anyway. The underlying issues — poverty, family dysfunction, lack of youth services — remained largely unaddressed, because addressing them would require spending money on social services rather than cutting them.
Source: NZ Police crime statistics, Ministry of Justice youth justice data
More people in prison. Similar crime rates. Higher costs. Fewer rehabilitation programmes. International evidence ignored in favour of what plays well on ZB. This is what "tough on crime" looks like in practice: expensive, ineffective, and performative. But at least the press conferences were good.