There was a spike in youth crime in Whangārei last year, new Government figures show, despite long-term data suggesting a steady decrease.

Data provided by the Government in response to Parliamentary questions from Northland-based National
List MP Dr Shane Reti showed the number of youth crimes in the Whangārei police area had risen by nearly 15 per cent, from 721 in 2018 to 828 in 2022.

The increase has not been steady, however, with a dip in 2019 and 2020. Total occurrences of youth crime in the Far North were down slightly from 2018, from 462 to 431. However, youth crime had still risen in Northland overall.

Sociologist Jarrod Gilbert said the long-term trend across New Zealand was that crime, including youth crime, was down.

“The long-term trend, without question, is down, but that doesn’t mean even in a long-term downtrend there can’t be specific community concern.”

Although there was a need for prisons, a better, longer-term fix would be to stop people from becoming socialised into crime as children, Gilbert said.

“That’s a generational solution, but that will be more effective than what we see with our current solutions,” he said.

Recidivism was an issue with young people who were sent to prison, he said.

“The latest data shows that if we put people under the age of 20 in prison, 75 per cent will be re-convicted of another crime within two years of being released.”

Gilbert said quick fixes were often viewed as more attractive, and often short-term issues such as last year’s gang war between the Tribesmen and the Killer Beez were not recognised as short-term problems.

“Coming into an election, I rather fear that numbers and data won’t matter as much as emotion and rhetoric,” he said.

Reti said there was clearly a youth crime wave in progress, based on the statistics provided by the Government.

National, as well as implementing a military academy scheme for the most serious youth offenders, would look at social issues that affect crime rates, including education and employment, Reti said.

He also wanted to see the Whangārei Police Station open to the public 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

“It does give more confidence to the community that their police issues can be dealt with in person by their local team, by someone who understands their local environment,” Reti said.

National would give police what was needed to tackle crime, he added.

“We’ll tool police up with the resources that they require to do the job they want to do and that they need to do.”

Whangārei MP Dr Emily Henderson said despite the increase, youth crime was still down in the long-term.

“A spike doesn’t discount that there’s a long-term trend to decreasing crime, with youth crime down about 60 per cent over the last 10 years.

“I know through my work with the police and MSD over the last year that we know who those tough-nut kids are in Whangārei, and we are working with them and their whanau.”

Less than 2 per cent of youth ever came to police attention, Henderson said, and only about 10 per cent of those will re-offend.