Introduction:
New Zealand’s history of state residential care for children — particularly from the mid-20th century to the end of the 1990s — has left a profound legacy of trauma, loss and life-trajectories that end too often in incarceration. Major research by the Royal Commission into Abuse in Care (RCIC) and subsequent government reports identify that children placed in state care between 1950 and 1999 where over 200,000 children experienced abuse, inevitably faced dramatically elevated risks of later offending and imprisonment. At the same time, survivors and advocacy groups are now responding — not only with call-outs of systemic harm and demands for redress, but also with community healing events and mobilisation. Meanwhile, new legislation put forward by Erica Stanford (Lead Coordination Minister for the response to the RCIC) is both advancing protections and triggering sharp debate about the terms of redress and accountability.
The “care to custody” data
The report “Care to Custody: Incarceration Rates of Individuals in New Zealand State Residential Care (1950–1999)” found approximately one in three (33 %) of children placed in state residential care in that period later served a prison sentence.
For Māori who experienced residential care in those decades, the rate was reported as up to 42 %.
By contrast, a matched cohort from the general population showed an incarceration rate of about 7.7 % (one in thirteen).
What happened then — the systemic failure:
The RCIC documented that children in state residential care often experienced:
-Physical violence.
-Emotional harm and neglect.
-Sexual abuse, and in some instances torture-level treatment.
Lack of accountability for perpetrators:
for example, the case of Dr Selwyn Leeks, alleged to have tortured over 300 children via electric-shock treatment in a state care facility, and was never held to account.
Alongside this, many survivors report they were not believed, their disclosures ignored, and the perpetrators protected by the state apparatus. These threads create a direct line from care-experience to disrupted lives, trauma, and heightened risk of offending and prison.
Legislative response and controversy:
The Bill states that where a survivor has also committed specified serious sexual or violent offences and been sentenced to more than five years in prison, an independent decision-maker must assess whether a redress payment would “bring the scheme into disrepute”.
At the same time, critics say there is a risk the Bill seeks to limit legal liability of organisations & the State for historical abuse — essentially enabling future organisations (and in some reading, current state-care institutions) to avoid legal liability for perpetration of child abuse in state care.
The Bill also sits alongside the Responding to Abuse in Care Legislation Amendment Bill (November 2024), which revises Acts such as the Oranga Tamariki Act 1989, Children’s Act 2014, Crimes Act 1961 and the Public Records Act 2005.
The intention is to improve safety, record-keeping, search powers in youth justice settings and workforce restrictions for people working with children.
Despite these measures, survivor groups and some opposition MPs argue that the legislation does not go far enough on accountability and redress — particularly for those survivors who also went on to commit crimes, or who require full recognition of institutional responsibility.
Survivors being proactive:
Across the country, survivors of state residential care abuse are organising and supporting each other. One notable group is NZ CAST (NZ Collective of Abused in Statecare Charitable Trust) — a charitable trust run by and for survivors. They are currently active in several ways:
Hosting health retreats with survivors and their children. The latest health retreat was held at the Epworth Health Retreat Camp in Cambridge. The motto of the camp was:
“Watch what your tama-ariki see, what your tama-ariki hear from you, but most importantly, how you make them feel”
NZ Cast were able to have children currently held in Oranga Tamariki residentual care come and engage with their parents at the camp for a week. This was a time for healing, connecting, sharing, learning about parenting, and healthy family relationships with support from social workers, psychologists and therapists.
Holding remembrance events:
The NZ CAST Waikato Hub will hold their survivor remembrance day on Saturday 8 November, and the NZ CAST National Day for Statecare Survivor Remembrance day will be held in Wellington on Saturday 15 November. This will begin with a silent march from Parliament to Frank Kitts Park, followed by public family-friendly activities, guest speakers, live entertainment, and NZ CAST involvement in providing food to the public.
Linking the data, the failures and the future:
When you place together the “one in three” incarceration statistic with the documented abuse experiences in state care, and the legislative context of redress and accountability, a coherent through-line emerges: system-level failure in the care institutions created increased risk of life-trajectories that ended in justice system contact.
The path from care to custody is not inevitable, but the data shows it is deeply more likely for those who were failed by the system.The controversy around the legislation — especially the clause that permits scrutiny of survivors who committed serious offences before awarding redress, and fears of limiting organisational liability — means that survivors are, quite justly, viewing progress with caution. Meanwhile, their own organising and events show the shifting terrain: survivors claim agency, build healing communities, demand accountability and refuse to be silenced.
What to watch and demand:
Ensure the redress scheme is timely, fair, culturally safe and does not further marginalise the survivors most likely to have been damaged most severely (including Māori and disabled survivors).
Monitor the accountability of state and institutional perpetrators: redress is part of justice, but so is establishing liability, truth-telling, full disclosure and institutional reform. In the public discourse, the high incarceration rates of former care-residents must be framed not simply as individual failing but as a foreseeable outcome of trauma, systemic abuse and lack of supportive pathways.
Support survivor-led initiatives: events such as those run by NZ CAST matter not only for healing, but for shifting public narratives and building pressure for reform.
Conclusion:
The legacy of state residential care in Aotearoa is one of missed opportunity, hidden harm and far-too-many lives diverted into cycles of justice-system contact. That roughly one in three children from historical residential care settings later went to prison is a number that demands our attention, empathy and action. The legislative debates and survivor mobilisations remind us that redress must be meaningful and institutions must be accountable — not only for the past, but to prevent future harm. As survivors gather in November for remembrance and healing, the country must listen, reflect and act.
