A decade-long trend of decreasing youth appearances in court is being bucked in recent years. Photo / Michael Craig
A decade-long trend of decreasing youth appearances in court is being bucked in recent years. Photo / Michael Craig
The small group of repeat youth offenders the Government is targeting through several youth crime initiatives is responsible for a recent jump in children getting into trouble with police.
The Ministry of Justice’s latest Youth Justice Indicators summary report acknowledges a small increase in the number of children aged between10 and 13 years old being reprimanded in some way by police between 2020/21 (2876) and 2021/22 (2964).
It notes the increase was mainly because of repeat offenders and adds that the number of young people entering the youth justice system had fallen over the past year and decade.
“This indicates that the increase in the number of police proceedings was principally due to a small number of repeat offenders,” the report said.
“This is also shown by the number of children and young people who entered the youth justice system decreasing over the last year.
However, there had been almost 80 more family group conferences held and more than 100 more “alternative actions” taken by police concerning offending youth - contributing to the overall increase in what was described as “police proceedings” against children.
The recent spike was linked to an increase in ram raids, which had become a popular crime among young people.
Police did not have a specific offence code for ram raids, meaning they were recorded as burglaries. Between 2020/21 and 2021/22, the number of police proceedings for burglary offences increased 16 per cent for children and young people.
Justice Minister Kiri Allan affirmed the theory that repeat offenders were behind the increase in the ministry data.
“The increase was not driven by more children offending but because those that have offended did so more often.
“This reveals what we already know, there is a small number of high-risk children with complex needs who we need to continue to work with to reduce their offending.”
In the past 12 months, Government ministers have regularly referenced the small number of young offenders - often numbered between 60 and 80 - who were the focus of many of its initiatives to reduce youth crime.
One of those initiatives included Kotahi te Whakaaro - a joint agency response to young people involved in crime that was launched in South Auckland and had since been expanded to West Auckland.
The approach, created by the South Auckland Social Wellbeing Board, brought together representatives of police, Oranga Tamariki, health groups, education, Kāinga Ora, the Ministry of Social Development, local non-government agencies and iwi to review cases of youth offenders caught in the preceding 24 hours.
Social Development and Employment Minister Carmel Sepuloni. Photo / Mark Mitchell
Social Development and Employment Minister Carmel Sepuloni said of the 147 children in the Kotahi te Whakaaro programme, only 27 had reoffended.
“The programme has also supported 373 siblings and wider family members, ensuring we are turning the lives around of some of our most vulnerable young people,” she said.
A similar “circuit-breaker” programme, announced by the Government in December, endeavoured to create a plan to tackle a youth’s offending within 24 hours of the crime taking place.
According to Minister for Children Kelvin Davis, 67 out of 84 children in the programme had not reoffended.
“We have found the vast majority of offenders have a family history of violence and harm, and wrapping support around the entire whānau is the only way to break the cycle of crime,” he said.
“Locking up children under the age of 15 does not work in the overwhelming number of cases, it just creates more hardened criminals who will reoffend once they are released from custody.”
Speaking to the Herald today, Police Minister Ginny Andersen said she wanted advice from her officials about whether the Kotahi te Whakaaro approach could be rolled out in other regions.
“I’ve seen figures in Bay of Plenty and also potentially in Christchurch which would warrant maybe looking in that space, it’s had really good results.”
According to the Justice Ministry’s report, the highest population-adjusted rates of more serious offending, as measured by the rate of first Youth Court appearances in 2021/22, were in the Bay of Plenty, Eastern and Central police districts.
An earlier version of this story said more children had been before the courts in 2021/22 compared with 2020/21. This is incorrect - there were three fewer children (10-13) brought before the courts, but there had been an overall increase in police dealings with offending youth that largely included measures outside of a courtroom.
