JustSpeak Exposes Variation in Youth Prosecution Rates

8 April 2013

“Today JustSpeak releases an infographic showing the rate of young people being prosecuted for various crimes. JustSpeak asks ‘please explain’ to the Government, and will be looking closely at how it plans to address these statistics in the Government’s upcoming Youth Crime Action Plan.”

“JustSpeak’s graphic and post shows the proportion of youth and child police apprehensions leading to prosecution in 2011, broken down by offence type. This information is sourced from New Zealand Police Statistics.”

“For every offence category other than one, Māori have a higher proportion of apprehensions leading to prosecution.”

Some further findings for 10- to 16-year-olds:

• The offence second-most-likely to result in prosecution is “offences against justice procedures, government security and government operations” – a category more likely to lead to prosecution than acts intended to cause injury;
• There are very few homicide or related offences for young offenders – only three cases in 2011;
• Theft is the most common youth offence;
• Of the 3495 theft apprehensions recorded as Caucasian, there were 588 prosecutions. For Māori, of the 5660 apprehensions recorded, 1173 resulted in prosecution (16.8% vs. 20.7%.).

“We don’t know the seriousness or details of each crime recorded, but a picture emerges with some surprises. To the Government we ask ‘please explain’.”

“When the Government releases its Youth Crime Action Plan later this year, JustSpeak will be looking closely for how the Government plans to address these sometimes surprising outcomes for young people.”

JustSpeak’s graphic and accompanying blog post can be accessed at www.justspeak.org.nz.

Prosecution vs. total apprehension numbers for 10- to 16-year-olds, 2011:

ENDS

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