ABSTRACT
The Child, Youth and Family Services (CYPF) Act set out separate judicial processes for children and young persons and established a system for dealing with child offenders through diversion to police Youth Aid, or through the Family Court, the Youth Court or through a victim offender reconciliation process known as the Family Group Conference (FGC). FGCs involve the offender and his advocate, family whanau members, the victim/s and the police. The objective of the FGC is to reconcile victims and offenders through such means as apology, reparation, community work, counselling, curfews, and training programmes and so on. Offenders charged with non-automatically indictable offences may be referred to Police Youth Aid for diversion, referred to an FGC or sent to the Youth Court. Those sent to Youth Court may have their cases dealt with by the court or can be sent on to the District Court for a jury trial.
