New Zealand rugby league icon-turned youth advocate Sir Graham Lowe thinks parents need to take a hard look at themselves in order combat rising youth crime.
The latest in a string of incidents came on Tuesday when 20 teenagers brazenly ramraided a mall in east Auckland.
Three vehicles were used in the ramraid, causing tens of thousands of dollars in damage.
Another recent ram raid of an Auckland dairy involved a child as young as 11-years-old.
Sir Graham, who runs a programme in prisons to assist disadvantaged youth with numeracy and literacy called 'Kick for the Seagulls', believed many young people committing such offences weren't being taught rights and wrongs at home.
"For a start, what are their parents doing?... The kids doing this sort of thing, how does that happen? Eleven-year-old children? Where are their parents?"
He told AM much earlier intervention was needed.
"Kick for the Seagulls - it's easily transferable to kids as little as primary school, intermediate - wherever. It's a programme that's based on 12 principles that we have using the language of sport," Sir Graham told host Ryan Bridge.
"These kids have got to be caught for a start so the cops have got to be given full support to catch them, and then maybe if they could be put somewhere or go through this sort of Kick for the Seagulls programme.
"We don't want this happening in 10 or 20 years' time.
"They have to be immediately put into a programme - this is a behavioural problem."
Sir Graham said programmes like 'Kick for the Seagulls' address behaviour without "ramming education down their throat".
"It teaches them commonsense and behaviour and, as strange as it might seem, for many of these kids that's foreign to them because they're not getting that at home.
"There are no consequences at home. In many cases, parents don't care so the kids have immediately got to be put into one of these programmes… it's a programme that challenges their commonsense.
"We know from what's happened in the prisons that we will get 100 percent success from it."
Such early intervention, Sir Graham said, would teach youth offenders right from wrong.
"This is what these kids are missing - so it's such a simple solution that's being ignored because they look for too many academics trying to find out what's wrong with these kids. These academics wouldn't have a bloody clue - it's commonsense and it's a simple message."
