Teen Offenders in the Wilderness: Lost Boys of New Zealand

In Lost Boys of Taranaki, VICE meets a group of 14 and 15-year-olds who have already racked up a string of criminal convictions growing up among poverty, gangs, and boredom under the shadow of Mt Taranaki. Some, like Kelsten, have one last chance to dodge lockup by taking part in an early intervention course for youth offenders.

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In this short documentary we look at a rural depressed town in New Zealand. Apparently the towns economy has been destroyed by the dairy industry or lack there of. There's many single parent homes, a lack of jobs, etc.

This story follows a group of boys who were getting in trouble with alcohol and drugs and burglarizing houses. A man in the area has created some type of wilderness camp to try to help reform troubled kids.

This documentary follows them on a weekend outing where they do some solo camping. I was surprised it didn't really seem like that was any schooling or therapy, although these types of programs do come in a variety of forms, some are longterm care type facilties where you do schooling and therapy and other things and others are more of a weekend type shock boot camp just to get kids away from their everyday environment and give them some time to experience something new and think a bit about the choices they are making.

It's a decent watch.