Serious youth crime is dropping nationwide, but is up 56% in one district, and rising in three regions

This is defined as offenders aged 10 to 17 with at least three police proceedings - ranging from a warning to being charged - within 12 months, at least one of which with a maximum penalty of at least seven years’ jail, such as theft.

The Government recently celebrated surpassing the target with a 16% reduction, according to data yet to be released.

The latest public update is up to May 2025, when there had been a 13.5% reduction from the June 2023 baseline figure of 1100 serious and persistent young offenders.

The September briefing reveals in-depth data up until June, when the overall reduction was 14.6% - though the trend was rising in some regions.

“In Canterbury, numbers have been higher than the baseline in the last four months,” the briefing said.

“In Tāmaki Makaurau, numbers have plateaued after a brief increase and are still 16% below the baseline [June 2023].”

The biggest and sustained decrease has been in Bay of Plenty.

“Numbers have decreased sharply in the last 12 months in Bay of Plenty to be 33% lower than the baseline. However, within this region, numbers have only just dipped below the baseline in Rotorua and Taupō.”

The briefing also categorised the data according to police district, with the numbers in the Eastern, Central and Waitematā districts above the baseline.

This had changed from the previous month. An older briefing showed Eastern, Central and Canterbury as the only police districts where numbers were higher than baseline. This means between May and June, numbers fell in Canterbury but rose in Waitematā.

The older briefing, with data up to May, showed a 56% increase in the number of serious and persistent young offenders in the Eastern district, compared to baseline. This was despite a 12% drop compared to the previous quarter, a nod to how inherently volatile serious youth offending can be.

The high rate compared to baseline is partly due to smaller numbers of such offenders in the district, making the trend more prone to wilder swings.

Northland, Tasman and Wellington were the districts with the biggest drops, in terms of percentage change (-36% to -39%), compared to baseline.

In Northland, this came despite the biggest quarter-to-quarter increase (25%), ahead of Waitematā (24%). The largest drop in numbers was Bay of Plenty (-28%).

Intensive case management teams have been established in Hamilton, Rotorua and Christchurch, the briefing said.

The latest briefing (with data to June) showed that burglary remained the common crime committed by this cohort, even though burglary offences have fallen by 29% since mid-2023.

Despite dropping in the most recent months, robbery offences and assaults have been on the rise, bucking the overall declining trend.

The briefing, as with previous ones, noted the risks of putting too much emphasis on serious and persistent offending.

“There is a risk that a lack of alignment across targets may result in trade-offs being made that negatively impact children and young people, particularly those in care.”

Youth offending had been trending down for over a decade before the pandemic, before rising alongside a media spotlight on ram raids.

The Herald previously revealed the trend started declining again in the middle of last year, before any major policy changes from the Government. The biggest change at the time was Oranga Tamariki pulling funding from hundreds of social service providers, with little transition plan for affected families and children.

Earlier this year, the Office of the Auditor-General found the agency’s process at the time was “not adequately informed by evidence or an understanding of how decisions would affect children and their families”.

“The effects of decisions on children and their families are still not known,” Auditor-General John Ryan said at the time.

Children advocates told the Herald last year the trend reversal in serious youth offending appeared to be a return to the pre-Covid trend, independent of government policy.

“We saw a bit of a spike post-Covid. It’s good to see that maybe the [pre-Covid] decline is returning,” Chief Children’s Commissioner Dr Claire Achmad said in November last year.

The data since then appears to confirm the numbers stabilising at pre-Covid levels.

The number of serious and persistent young offenders peaked at 1126 in November 2023, fluctuated for the next seven months, and then started falling in June 2024.

There were 930 such offenders in January 2025, and despite a rise between February and April, the number lowered again to 923 in June 2025.

The number of youth offenders overall has been dropping at roughly the same rate as the more serious offending cohort.

The number of lower-level youth offenders (who fall short of the “serious and persistent threshold”) dropped by 12% over the 12 months to June, slightly higher than the 11% for the serious and persistent group.

Minister for Children Karen Chhour has said the drop in serious youth offending is due to many factors, including investing in what works.

“What was working was the collaboration between agencies having a faster response when it comes to a young person appearing before the justice system, so that we can put the wrap-around supports around them and their families a lot quicker,” she told TVNZ’s Q+A earlier this month.

“Also, I think the messaging is very clear from this Government that crime is not okay, and that there’ll be consequences, and it doesn’t matter what age you are.”

Meanwhile, the Government’s flagship policy on youth crime - a new law enabling Youth Court judges to send serious young offenders to a bootcamp, is months behind schedule.

These bootcamps will be new, and informed by the recently-completed bootcamp pilot.

Legislation was meant to be enacted by the end of August, but three months later, the Responding to Serious Youth Offending Bill is still waiting for its second reading.

Labour has suggested there might be an issue with electronic monitoring. According to answers to written parliamentary questions, Chhour received a joint briefing in September titled: Update on future electronic monitoring decisions related to the [bill].

In a regulatory impact analysis of the bill last year, a Young Serious Offender could be subject to wider use of electronic monitoring, and for 12 months instead of the six.

This could create tension with certain rights, officials said, including the Bill of Rights protection from unreasonable search or seizure, and the rights of young people to be dealt with in an age-appropriate way.

Chhour told the Herald there were no snags with the bill’s progression, saying the initial August timeline was “indicative only”.

“This Government has a busy legislative agenda, but any adjustments to the indicative draft timeline will not affect any future Military Style Academy programme going ahead,” she said.

“The bill will pass in due course.”

She hailed the pilot as a success, despite most of the participants having reoffended, saying their offending was less serious than a comparable group who did not go through the pilot.

Derek Cheng is a senior journalist who started at the Herald in 2004. He has worked several stints in the press gallery team and is a former deputy political editor.