Christopher Luxon has gone against decades of evidence, survivor testimonies, and the abysmal results of his own failed pilots to turn boot camps into law.

“It’s a sad day for survivors and the future of our youth justice system,” Labour children’s spokesperson Willow-Jean Prime said.

“Labour has been warning National for years. The boot camps are a failed experiment and is taking us back down a road of harm.

“We saw it in the first pilot, where the majority of participants went on to reoffend. We saw it in the second pilot, where two alleged assaults occurred and two participants voluntarily left.

“This is all happening against a backdrop of serious incidents in our youth justice facilities and growing concerns about abuse in state care.

“Now is not the time to double down on a failed experiment. Young people in the youth justice system need rehabilitation, therapeutic support and strong services – not a bumper sticker slogan that sends them back out worse.

“Labour will scrap National’s boot camps and focus on evidence-based interventions that help young people turn their lives around.

“After everything we’ve seen, Luxon had every chance to end this chaos. But, as he’s made clear before when asked whether boot camps work, his response was simply: ‘I don’t care’,” Willow-Jean Prime said