Police Minister Poto Williams weighs in on recent ram raids while National call for policy change. Video / NZ Herald
Police minister Poto Williams says the recent spike in youth crime is distressing and requires a "whole of society" approach to solve.
It comes after Children's Commissioner Judge Frances Eivers told the Herald on Sunday the Government must step in after at least 45 children or teenagers have allegedly been behind eight crimes such as break-ins and ram raids reported over the school holidays.
Twenty-three people are facing charges in the District Court or Youth Court, or have been referred to Youth Aid. The other half are still on the run.
"There is no doubt the recent spate of crime involving young people is distressing," Williams said.
"But this is an issue that goes much wider than police and needs a whole-of-society approach."
Williams referenced work, co-sponsored by police and the Ministry of Social Development, on behalf of the social sector on gangs that included a youth focus.
"The work on youth is specifically drawing on things that work well, such as the Youth Gang Action Plan, and what we know about why youth join/undertake gang activity."
Police Minister Poto Williams. Photo / Mark Mitchell
In the past two years, 109 new police staff had been employed to work in the youth space.
Eivers said whānau struggling with the cost of living, the impact of Covid-19 and rangatahi not being at school, or kids being at a loose end could be behind the crime wave.
Oranga Tamariki has said most of those involved in the recent spike are children it is already working with.
"Imagine if you come from a family where there isn't much money, where there isn't any food in the cupboard, where dad might be in prison, or there's domestic violence," Eivers said.
Despite these crimes happening during the school holidays, she suspected the young people involved had not been at school for a long time.
Children's Commissioner Judge France Eivers. Photo / Mark Mitchell
The Government was set to announce a package to tackle stubbornly high truancy levels. More than 40 per cent of students do not go to school regularly - an increase of 10 percentage points since 2015, and there are huge disparities for Māori and Pacific children and lower-income households.
Eivers said these children deserved the opportunity to thrive, rather than be put on a path to prison.
She said the Government needed to direct community leaders to work together with the likes of iwi, local police officers, and Oranga Tamariki social workers to find a solution.
And affected communities needed to ask was how these young people ended up in such a position, Eivers said. She said it was hard enough being a teenager at the best of times.
The recent ram raid at the Ormiston Town Centre shopping mall was just one of many that occurred across the country during the school holidays. Photo / Hayden Woodward
Three people holding hammers allegedly ran out of a Grey Lynn dairy late one night and into a car with a 12-year-old girl in the driver's seat. The vehicle later slid into a tree. Police found a duffel bag full of stolen cigarettes.
Eivers acknowledged those involved needed to be held accountable for their actions but she said the answer wasn't about punishing them.
"We don't want this happening and we don't want this sort of offending to continue."
Assistant Police Commissioner Richard Chambers said the reasons young people were involved in these types of crimes were complex.
A vehicle involved in an Auckland ram raid in April. Photo / Hayden Woodward
He said contributing factors included children being disengaged from schooling and their families, social media influence and the value of stolen goods.
Chambers said the issue wasn't new and pointed to a spike in recent months of young people involved in such crimes in areas of the country including Tāmaki Makaurau and Waikato.
