The next generation's violent criminals can be spotted by the age of about three, according to Principal Youth Court Judge Andrew Becroft.
But early intervention in the often troubled lives of these "human time bombs" is seriously lacking.
The issue has been raised at a Youth Horizons conference in Wellington
to discuss severe conduct disorder.
The disorder affects up to 3000 mainly male teenagers and is seen in many of New Zealand's worst offenders. Also known as juvenile psychopathy, it manifests in a total lack of compassion, including violence toward people and animals, stealing, arson, alcohol and drug abuse.
Judge Becroft said about half of the 5000 young people a year before the youth court were likely to have some form of conduct disorder.
"They are human time bombs - tomorrow's violent offenders."
Children with the disorder were very naughty at pre-school - telling lies and being violent and difficult.
By primary school they were committing property offences; by 10 they were smoking cannabis; by intermediate school they were violent; and by their early teens they had usually dropped out of school.
"Most youth offending we don't need to be hysterical about, but these kids we do need to be," Judge Becroft said.
But Children's Commissioner Cindy Kiro said labelling children as potential offenders was worrying.
"If we can identify young offenders by three then it begs the question of why we don't stop them with early intervention," she said yesterday.
Judge Becroft said help was desperately needed for problem children and their families.
"The earlier the better. If the community really took seriously criminal offending, we would have comprehensive earlier intervention."
Youth Horizons clinical director Justine Harris said there was no doubt many serious violent criminals of the future could be identified at pre-school.
"We're saying you need to be really targeting this specific group because they are going to do the most damage."
The non-profit organisation was only able to treat 65 young people last year, because of a lack of funds, Ms Harris said.
Child, Youth and Family said yesterday that it had set up an inter-agency working group to tackle the disorder.
- NZPA
