· In short: Chris Minns has launched a new initiative designed to tackle youth crime in Moree.

· The program, named Project Pathfinder, will team at-risk teenagers with NRL players for one-on-one mentorships.

· The program comes weeks after the Premier announced tougher bail laws for young people.

Just weeks after new bail laws were passed that make it harder for some young people to get bail, the NSW Premier has flown to a crime-stricken regional town to announce a new program aimed at keeping teenagers on the straight and narrow.

Flanked by rugby league stars including Latrell Mitchell and Cody Walker, Chris Minns launched Project Pathfinder – which will offer at-risk adolescents one-on-one mentorships with NRL players, sports clinics and trips to Sydney to experience games and training.

"We know we need a major intervention, but initiatives like this offer hope and an alternative," Mr Minns said.

"You can't be what you can't see. And if young people in Moree in particular see an NRL player at the peak of his or her own game, they can imagine what is possible for them."

Three teens from Moree, Lightning Ridge and Bourke have so far completed a pilot of the program and the government says it plans to involve new teenagers every month.

But it can't say how many young people it's aiming to help with the program and teens who have already committed crimes are not eligible.

Kids involved in crime not eligible

Assistant Commissioner Gavin Wood has defended that decision.

"We don't look at those kids who are actively involved in crimes. I suppose in some respects we can't be seen to be rewarding children or kids who are actively involved in crime," he said.

But that seems problematic to some experts, like Associate Professor of Criminology Xanthé Mallett from the University of Newcastle.

"If we simply look at those at risk and say if you've already committed an offence you're not worthy of this kind of assistance or these kinds of role models or opportunity, I think that's just going to further entrench these behaviours that we are seeing," Dr Mallett said.

Dr Mallett said more needs to be done to divert and support young people who have already started committing crimes, and the new bail laws introduced last month are not the answer.

"While I understand the community's concerns and the need for safety … we know that simply locking them up isn't going to solve this problem," she said, adding that Indigenous young people would be disproportionately affected.

Forty-year-old Gomeroi man Buddy Hippi, spent his youth in neighbouring Boggabilla, a town that also wrestles with youth crime rates.

He now runs a local youth and community organisation and welcomed the government's announcement.

"We need more mentor programs within the community, run by community for community," he said.

"That grass roots level has a big impact. We know the government are standing up with that and driving that."

The government's announcement comes six weeks after Mr Minns last visited Moree to hear from local residents, after videos of teenagers breaking into motel rooms and bashing at front doors with golf clubs circulated on the internet.

 

People living in the town are eight times more likely to have their homes broken into and almost seven times more likely to have their car stolen than the average NSW Resident, according to figures from the Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research.

Following that visit, the government rushed through the new bail laws, which apply to people between 14 and 18 years old who are charged with committing certain serious break and enter and motor vehicle theft offences while on bail for similar crimes.

Previously magistrates could only deny bail to young people if they were believed to present and "unacceptable risk" of reoffending.

But now in order to grant bail they need to have a "high degree of confidence" a young person will not commit a further serious indictable offence.

When he announced the new bail laws Mr Minns conceded that they would likely lead to more Indigenous children being put behind bars.

"I'm being honest, I think it will lead to increased incarceration, but our hope is in the long run, with intervention and support, that changes," he said.