A child advocacy group is calling on political parties to hop off the youth justice bandwagon

New Zealand First wants to introduce a Youth Justice Demerit Points System .. the exact same idea was scrapped in 2021.

It seeks to reduce repeat offending by assigning points based on the gravity of an offence.

Save the Children spokesperson Jacqui Southey says they'd like to see them focus their energy and policies, in different ways.

She says it's also disappointing that parties aren't considering policies that build up children and families.