Children and Young People: Indicators of Wellbeing in New Zealand 2008

Justice

Police apprehensions of 14–16 year olds
Cases proved in the Youth Court

ISBN 978-0-478-33506-4 (Print) 
ISBN 978-0-478-33507-1 (Online)

The other sections and the appendices of the Children and Young People: Indicators of Wellbeing in New Zealand can be found at www.msd.govt.nz
Justice
Desired outcomes
All children and young people take growing responsibility for their actions, and have access to fair and equitable treatment within the justice system.
Introduction
Offending by children aged 10 to 13 years and young people aged 14 to 16 years is dealt with under the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families Act 1989. The Act is recognised internationally as the first legislative example of a restorative justice approach to offending by children and young people. The objects of the Act relating to children and young people who commit offences include:

•	that they are held accountable, and encouraged to accept responsibility, for their behaviour; and 
•	that they are dealt with in a way that acknowledges their needs and that will give them the opportunity to develop in responsible, beneficial, and socially acceptable ways.

Principles are also identified in the Act to guide the people, agencies and courts that deal with the children and young people who are alleged to have or who have broken the law. These principles are consistent with Article 40 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCROC), which sets out a range of protections for children and young people accused of breaking the law.

The youth justice system takes a diversionary approach and aims to keep young people out of the formal justice system (courts), unless the public interest requires otherwise. The system aims to resolve offending and hold a young offender to account without them receiving a criminal conviction, as they would under the criminal justice system. Research shows that youth / juvenile justice systems are more successful at reducing reoffending than adult criminal justice systems.

A child aged 10 to 13 years can only be prosecuted in an adult court for murder or manslaughter. For other offences they are dealt with under the care and protection system. If court intervention is required it will be in the Family Court. A young person (someone aged 14 to 16 years) can be warned by frontline Police; referred to the Youth Aid division of Police for alternative action (diversion); referred for a youth justice Family Group Conference (FGC) to decide whether a charge should be laid; or arrested and charged in the Youth Court. Cases proved in the Youth Court are not recorded as convictions.

For very serious offences, the Youth Court may transfer the young person to the adult court system. Where a young person is charged with murder or manslaughter they are dealt with in the High Court. Alleged offenders aged 17 years and over are dealt with in the adult court system.

The majority of offending by young people is minor and short-term; nearly half of all known offences committed by young people are rated as of minimum seriousness. A minority of young people commit serious and/or repeat offences. This minority commits a large proportion of all youth offences. These are serious young offenders who have been described in research as persisters. Persistent young offenders often begin offending at a young age (before the age of 14 years) and can start committing serious crimes early on in their criminal careers. Early intervention (intervention delivered early in the life of the person and the problem) is the most effective means known of reducing the risk of persistent offending among at-risk young people.

For further information about the New Zealand youth justice system, see www.justice.govt.nz/youth-justice/system.html and www.cyf.govt.nz/youthjustice.htm

Indicators
The two indicators in the Justice domain reflect the working of the youth justice system. 

Police apprehensions of 14–16 year olds is an indicator of the level of offending by young people. It measures the incidence of apprehensions for alleged offending per head of population aged 14–16 years. 

Cases proved in the Youth Court is an indicator of the extent of youth offending which is too serious to be resolved by any of the other means available in the youth justice system.

Police apprehensions of 14–16 year olds
Definition
The number of Police apprehensions of 14–16 year olds for all offences except non-imprisonable traffic offences, as a proportion (per 10,000) of all 14–16 year olds. This measure overstates the true rate of apprehensions of youth of this age, because some individuals may have been apprehended for more than one offence. An apprehension for an offence indicates a formal contact between a young person and the Police in relation to an offence that has occurred. Apprehension in relation to an offence is not the same as being charged with or convicted for that offence.
Relevance
The involvement of young people in offending has a negative impact on their wellbeing. Aside from minor traffic offences, offending by young people may also indicate exposure to a range of other risky behaviours or to the risk of violence.
Current level and trends
In the year ended December 2006 there were 30,451 Police apprehensions of 14–16 year olds for non-traffic offences, a rate of 1,591 apprehensions per 10,000 14–16 year olds.

The non-traffic apprehension rate for 14–16 year olds rose sharply in the early 1990s, from 1,378 per 10,000 in 1991 to a peak of 1,926 per 10,000 in 1996. After remaining reasonably steady until 2003 it dropped markedly to 1,639 in 2004 and has fallen more slowly since then.

Of the 30,451 youth apprehensions recorded in 2006, the majority (62 percent) were either dealt with by Police Youth Aid or issued with a formal warning, 6 percent were referred to a Family Group Conference to decide whether a charge should be laid, and 29 percent were prosecuted.

Figure J1.1 Number of non-traffic apprehensions and non-traffic apprehension rate, 14–16 year olds, 1991–2006

Source: Spier  P (2001), Table 7.1; Ministry of Justice, unpublished data; Chong J (2007), Tables 3.3 and 3.4
Types of offences
The majority of apprehensions involving 14–16 year olds over the period 1995–2006 were for property offences – mainly theft, burglary, wilful damage and car conversion.
In 2006, the youth apprehension rate for theft was 352 per 10,000 14–16 year olds. Theft-related apprehension rates have been lower in recent years than in the mid-1990s when they were over 500 per 10,000. Apprehension rates for motor vehicle conversion have declined considerably, from 141 per 10,000 in 1995 to 76 per 10,000 in 2006.

Rates of apprehension for burglary were also lower in 2006 than in 1995 (192 per 10,000 compared with 231 per 10,000). However, apprehensions for wilful damage have increased, from 157 per 10,000 in 1995 to 216 per 10,000 in 2006.

Offences against good order were the basis for another large group of apprehensions, with a rate of 212 per 10,000 14–16 year olds in 2006. This was the same as the figure in 1995, although it had fluctuated in the intervening years.

The rate of apprehension for violent offences was 196 per 10,000 14–16 year olds in 2006, an increase from 167 per 10,000 in 1995. Most of the offences in this category are assaults, with serious assaults slightly outnumbering minor assaults in 2006 (79 serious assaults per 10,000 14–16 year olds, compared with 73 minor assaults). For most of the period since 1995 minor assaults were more common than serious assaults but while minor assaults have gone down slightly in recent years, serious assaults have been increasing.

Youth apprehension rates for drug offences increased during the late 1990s but have since fallen. Between 2000 and 2006 the rate for 14–16 year olds fell from 119 offences per 10,000 to 69 offences per 10,000.

Apprehension rates for offences against justice increased markedly between 1995 and 2000 (from 29 per 10,000 to 80 per 10,000), possibly because of a greater focus by Police on compliance with bail conditions. However, the rate has almost halved since then, reaching 42 per 10,000 in 2006.
Sex differences
The majority of young people who are apprehended by the Police are male (between 77 and 80 percent over the period from 1995 to 2006).
Ethnic differences
Young Māori are overrepresented in Police apprehensions. Since 1995, almost half of all Police apprehensions of young people have involved young Māori. The apprehension rate of Māori aged 14–16 is more than twice the rate for Pacific peoples of the same age and nearly three times that of New Zealand Europeans. While the apprehension rate for Pacific peoples is higher than that of the New Zealand European and other category (including Asian), it is lower than the rate for the total 14–16 year old population.

Cases proved in the Youth Court
Definition
The number of cases proved in the Youth Court, excluding cases involving non-imprisonable traffic offence cases, as a proportion (per 10,000) of all 14–16 year olds. Individuals who have had more than one case proved in the same year will be counted more than once.
Relevance
The Children, Young Persons, and Their Families Act 1989 states that “… unless the public interest requires otherwise, criminal proceedings should not be instituted against a child or young person if there is an alternative means of dealing with the matter” (s. 208). Most young people (about 80 percent) who are apprehended are dealt with by the Police Youth Aid Section and are given a warning or diversion. Only a minority of young people apprehended are referred to a family group conference or are prosecuted in the Youth Court.

This indicator measures only those cases proved in the Youth Court. These cases represent offences that are brought to the Youth Court because they are too serious to be managed through community-based measures such as diversion and for which a young person is held accountable. These cases are not recorded as convictions.
Current level and trends
In 2006, 1,677 non-traffic cases were proved in the Youth Court, a rate of 88 cases for every 10,000 14–16 year olds in New Zealand.

The rate of non-traffic cases proved in the Youth Court per 10,000 14–16 year olds increased substantially between 1992 and 1997 (from 49 per 10,000 to 80 per 10,000) and fluctuated around that level until 2003. Since the introduction of a new system for recording cases in 2004 the rate has dropped slightly (from 95 cases per 10,000 to 88 per 10,000).

In 2006, the majority of proved cases against young offenders involved property offences (53 percent), while almost a quarter (24 percent) related to violent offences. A further 11 percent involved imprisonable traffic offences and 5 percent concerned offences against good order.

Figure J2.1 Number of non-traffic cases proved in the Youth Court and rate of cases proved per 10,000 14–16 year olds, 1992–2006

Source: Chong J (2007), p60 and 64
Note: In 2004 the system used by the courts to log cases was updated from the Law Enforcement System (LES) to the Case Management System (CMS). The new system recorded a higher number of cases and so data collected before and after the changeover is not strictly comparable (Chong 2007, pp 18-21).
Age differences
Sixteen year olds accounted for the largest proportion (46 percent) of cases involving young people where the final outcome in 2006 was case proved, followed by 15 year olds (25 percent). Those aged 17 years (at the time of sentencing) accounted for 22 percent, while 14 year olds accounted for just six percent. A few cases (1 percent) involved people aged 18 or over, who were under 17 when they offended.
Sex differences
Males make up the vast majority of cases brought for prosecution in the Youth Court and this is reflected in their share of cases proved (87 percent in 2006). Of all young people prosecuted in the Youth Court in 2006, males were more likely than females to have a final outcome of case proved in 2006: 28 percent, compared with 22 percent of females.
Ethnic differences
Māori are highly overrepresented in Youth Court prosecutions. In 2006, 56 percent of cases proved involved a young Māori. In comparison, Māori made up 22 percent of the population aged 14–16 years in 2006.

Pacific young people accounted for 11 percent of cases proved in 2006, the same proportion as they made up of the population aged 14–16 years in that year (11 percent).

European young people were underrepresented, accounting for 32 percent of cases proved and 72 percent of the population aged 14–16 years.

Young people of all other ethnicities (including Asian) were also underrepresented, making up just 2 percent of cases proved but 11 percent of 14–16 year olds in the population.