The report highlights the influx of children and young people into the youth justice system
A new report published by the Ministry of Justice has shown a continuous substantial decrease in youth offending across the country.
The December 2021 Youth Justice Indicators report shows that offending rates among children aged 10 to 13 dipped by 65%, while offending rates among young people fell by 63%.
“This means that there were 2,900 fewer children and almost 8,500 fewer 14- to 16-year-old offenders than there were 10 years ago,” Justice Minister Kris Faafoi said.
He added that the last year’s positive trends for rangatahi Māori have persisted. For instance, the number of young Māori appearing before the Youth Court dropped by 51% from 2016-2017 to 2020-2021, compared with a 45% per cent decline for offenders of European descent and others.
While it remains challenging to determine all the factors that contributed to the overall reduction in youth offending, Faafoi noted that there have been a range of cross-sector youth justice initiatives developed to avert crime, reduce escalation and provide intervention, which he said are “likely to have fed into the identified trends.” The Youth Justice Indicators report highlights the influx of children (aged 10 to 13) and young people (aged 14 to 16) into the youth justice system from 2010-2011 to 2020-2021.
The government also established Rangatahi and Pasifika Courts in 2008 and 2010, respectively, to foster strong cultural links and significantly engage communities in the youth justice process towards reducing reoffending by young Māori and Pasifika.
At present, various justice sector agencies have been involved in long-term, major programs to improve outcomes across the justice system, especially the lopsided impacts on Māori. These programs include:
“These programmes are expected to further consolidate the tremendous gains shown in this report for children and young people and help address remaining challenges, including the disproportionately high number of young Māori appearing before the Youth Court and reducing rates of serious offending, which hasn’t declined as quickly as other forms of offending,” Faafoi said.
