John Da Silva
Feature
Escape from ‘Alcatraz’
by Matt Nippert
What really happened to boys sent to a boot camp on a remote island?
Great Barrier Island, 100km northeast of downtown Auckland and nearly two-thirds nature reserve, is rightly regarded by locals as a slice of paradise.
Near the tiny settlement of Whangaparapara on the west coast is a small islet guarding the entrance to Mangati Bay. This 7ha scrub-covered rocky outcrop rising 80m from the sea is known officially as Whangara, or Cliff Island. But for more than two decades, hundreds of youngsters knew it simply as “Alcatraz”.
This informal prison island was part of the youth justice programme run by Child, Youth and Family (CYF) through the Mangati Bay-based Whakapakari Youth Trust. It took some of the nation’s most out-of-control young people on three-month “wilderness camps” to wean them off drugs and learn subsistence survival skills and Maoritanga.
Alcatraz was where misbehaving boys, some as young as 13, were banished for breaking camp rules. Some report they were abandoned overnight without food, water, supervision or bedding, sleeping rough in the mud beneath manuka.
CYF knew about Alcatraz for more than a decade, yet repeated directives not to use it were not enforced.
Today Alcatraz is uninhabited. The steep trail from the stony beach to the top of the jutting rock is overgrown and a makeshift campsite is slowly rotting. On March 15, 2004, the last 18 youths on the Whakapakari programme were evacuated. The camp was closed, and an internal CYF email from around this time notes there was “strong evidence to suggest that there was a pervasive environment of institutionalised violence throughout the programme”.
No one knows how many young people completed the programme during its 27-year existence, but nearly 400 residents were placed there, and $2.6 million was paid for their care, between 1998 and 2004.
The chain of events that led to the closure began early in 2004 after a complaint from a young man who was supposed to go to the camp. He had heard that residents were routinely “given the bash” by adult staff and other youths on the programme. CYF began a formal investigation.
According to a police summary, on October 8, 2003, camp supervisor James Harold Cook took exception to a group of youths discussing plans to escape from the Whakapakari Trust camp. Cook, then 41, picked up a stick and smacked a 15-year-old boy on the head, causing a cut that required three stitches. After a year-long investigation, Cook pleaded guilty to a charge of common assault. He was discharged without conviction.
But interviews and documents obtained under the Official Information Act suggest Cook’s court appearance was just the tip of the iceberg. Most of the 19 former residents interviewed for an official CYF report on Whakapakari said they saw serious assaults. One alleged several sexual violations by a staff member, but this young person “was too scared to lay [a] complaint with police”.
Transcripts of social workers’ interviews conducted with residents described assaults by staff that were so commonplace that slang terms had been coined to differentiate between kicks. A “toehack” was a kick up the backside, while a “punt” was a kick sideways. Some youngsters were deputised as enforcers, known as the “Flying Squad”, to physically discipline their peers.
Wellington lawyer Sonja Cooper referred several young people to Whakapakari in her role as a youth advocate – but with hindsight she would “absolutely not” do it again. Cooper’s firm is representing 18 former residents of Whakapakari who are launching civil suits against CYF’s parent body, the Ministry of Social Development.
Two cases involving Whakapakari have already been filed at the High Court in Wellington. One man, who cannot be named for legal reasons, alleges that as a 16-year-old he was repeatedly sexually violated by a camp supervisor 10 years ago.
Another, Luke Boyd, says he was part of the “Flying Squad” and was instructed by adult supervisors to “deal to” other youth considered to be misbehaving.
Cooper’s claimants each want $500,000 in damages for harm they say occurred while they were in state care.
“The fact is many were beaten and sexually abused – sodomised and raped – but they also lived in an environment where they were scared, they were bullied, where they were always at risk of violence,” says Cooper.
And although childhood bruises and wounds may heal, the effects may last a lifetime. “They were told they were useless, they were told they were going to end up in prison – and that became a self-perpetuating and self-fulfilling prophecy.”
These cases are just a small fraction of the civil suits being brought against the Government. Cooper is representing nearly 800 former wards of the state who allege mistreatment at residences around the country over the past six decades. Hundreds of claims have already been filed in the Wellington High Court, but legal technicalities could prevent those who say they suffered abuse having their day in court.
The Ministry of Social Development is denying all allegations – including those of negligence, assault and battery, and false imprisonment – in the two Whakapakari claims Cooper has filed so far. Garth Young, manager of historic claims at the ministry, says six other former Whakapakari Trust youths have also filed civil papers in court.
On the charge of negligence, Cooper says there was a decade-long line of warning flags. “There were concerns and complaints made about assaults and about sexual abuse.”
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