Six community groups that take children surfing, dirt biking, kayaking, boxing and tramping will share $2.4 million in the Government’s second round of funding for sport-based youth crime prevention.
Sport and Recreation Minister Mark Mitchell announced the round on 9 September. It follows $2.2 million given to five organisations in June and is part of an $8 million Sport NZ project to be paid out in four rounds.
“It is about backing community led solutions and giving young people positive pathways which help prevent them from entering or re-entering the youth justice system,” Mitchell said.
“We are investing in trusted community organisations with proven capability and strong local connections to support children and young people through the positive vehicle of physical activity and sport,” he said.
The money arrives with the Government’s own youth offending target already beaten. The latest factsheet from the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, covering the quarter to June 2026, counts 814 children and young people with serious and persistent offending behaviour. That is down from a baseline of 1,100 in June 2023, a fall of 26 percent. The target is a 15 percent reduction, which means fewer than 900, by 2030.
The number has come down each quarter for the past year, from 856 in December 2025 to 829 in March and 814 in June. The department rates the target as on track. It also notes that the figures now come from an Oranga Tamariki data feed, and that falls measured against the Cabinet-agreed baseline look slightly larger than they would against the earlier Ministry of Justice baseline.
The fall has not been even across the country. In its December 2025 factsheet the department reported drops of at least 20 percent in eight of the 12 police districts, while numbers in Eastern district, which covers Hawke’s Bay and Gisborne, were above the baseline and Canterbury’s were level with it. The factsheets do not break the fall down by programme. The Government also runs intensive case management teams in Christchurch, Rotorua and Hamilton, a fast-track response in six areas and a military-style academy, whose second intake finished its residential phase on 9 July.
Two of the six new recipients are in the Bay of Plenty. The Bay of Plenty Youth Development Trust will combine education re-engagement and cultural connection with boxing, tramping, kayaking, abseiling and bushcraft. Youth Encounter will take 10 to 18 year olds dirt biking and surfing alongside mentoring, therapy and leadership work.
Ignite Sport will work with small groups of young people in the Hutt Valley. Ngāpuhi Iwi Social Services will run a programme for 10 to 18 year olds in Northland, and the Meke Foundation will support 12 to 18 year olds at its sport-first education academy in Hawke’s Bay. That puts one of the six in the police district where the December figures were running above baseline.
The sixth, Whenua Iti Outdoors, will set up a two-year programme in the Buller district on the West Coast. RNZ reported it is getting $450,000 over two years. The Government’s notes put the age range at 10 to 12, while chief executive Mark Bruce-Miller told RNZ’s Checkpoint it would be for 10 to 14 year olds.
Whenua Iti says the programme will take two groups of eight to 10 participants into the region’s bush, rivers, caves and coastline and onto its climbing and cycling spots. It will work with Buller REAP, Homebuilders and the local police community engagement team so that each young person has support beyond their time outdoors. On RNZ’s figure the funding works out at between about $22,500 and $28,000 per participant over two years. Whenua Iti says it will also document what changes for the young people involved and how, adding to the evidence on sport as a youth development tool.
“Sport and active recreation allows young people the opportunity to connect in social settings, to get out and connect to the natural world and develop skills that are quite hard to develop in and around classroom settings,” Bruce-Miller told Checkpoint.
He told RNZ the organisation works with about 5000 young people a year, often those who are not doing well in conventional classrooms. In the Whenua Iti statement he said “Building rapport with young people takes time and the outdoors is a perfect setting which is free from the distractions of our digital-centric world.”
“We’re a small, connected community, and that’s why collaboration is key to making this investment work,” said Mary-Rose O’Loughlin, manager at Buller REAP.
Junior Armstrong, who leads the project at Sport NZ, said “Being involved in sport and physical activity can help develop positive routines and relationships and over time this can reduce the risk of harm, support better choices and help young people turn their lives around.”
The first round in June went to Pūmanawa Āwhina in Auckland and Northland, Live for More’s surf therapy programme in Tauranga, the Billy Graham Youth Foundation’s boxing programme, Te Rāhi a Māui in Canterbury and Blue Light’s national RISE programme. When he announced that round on 3 June, Mitchell said “I have seen firsthand the difference that sport and recreation can make in the lives of young people.”
With two rounds allocated, $4.6 million of the $8 million is now committed, leaving about $3.4 million for the last two rounds. The latest round comes less than two months before the 7 November election. If you want to see how your own views line up with the parties on law and order and everything else, try our voting tool.
Can sport and the outdoors keep young people out of trouble? Have you seen a programme like this make a difference in your town? Tell us what you think in the comments below.
This article was written by AI, briefed to report the facts, hopefully without some of the bias people bring to the job 🙂
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