PM warns against 'knee-jerk reactions' to spate of ram-raids

It is a "positive sign" the numbers of young people appearing in Youth Court has declined, the prime minister says.

Jacinda Ardern said it is also a "positive trend" the number of repeat offenders appearing is also coming down.

The issue of youth crime has come to the fore in the last week after a spike in ram-raids.

The latest was early on Saturday morning, where a group of youths stole about $50,000 worth of clothing from the Icebreaker outlet near Auckland Airport.

READ MORE: Child offending is a 'solvable, manageable problem' - expert

The five youths ram-raided the store's front door before fleeing in a second vehicle, which later crashed through a school's fence.

One of the alleged offenders was caught and clothing stolen from the store was found in the crashed car.

Most of the children and youths involved in the spate of ram-raids and robberies nationwide are known to Oranga Tamariki, the organisation has said.

According to the latest Youth Justice Indicators Summary Report, which shows the flow of children and young people through the youth justice system from 2010/11-2020/21, offending rates among those aged 10-13 fell by 65%.

Over the same period, offending rates among young people dropped by 63%.

"There are still young people who - look for a number of reasons - are finding themselves in our system," Ardern told Breakfast despite such statistics.

"We need to support those local community-based responses, because they know those families, they know their circumstances, and they are going to be much more likely to make a difference than just us pulling a lever on a law change."

Over the last week, police have said social media is a key driving force behind the spike in ram raids.

A former police negotiator said the drivers of crime need to be looked at, while a youth worker said the country is dealing with a "generation of hopelessness".

National believes the Government is "very soft on crime".

Everyone seems to agree, however, youth crime cannot be attributed to a single factor, and that community is key, which Ardern continued to touch on.

"We do need to make sure that we are supporting our communities to respond to those issues, but I don't want to see knee-jerk reactions that make an issue worse, and that's where we've got to make sure we're really targeting those responses.

"I'm not the expert to be able to tell you, but I do think we are in a situation at the moment where it is very hard to be growing up in the environment that globally we're seeing at the moment."

Ardern said the Government had been worried about the engagement of young people in education for some time and that is why it is investing $88 million to keep students in school.

A report published last month - which looked at data from Integrated Data Infrastructure on 48,989 children from birth in 2000 to June 2019, along with some Oranga Tamariki case files and included interviews with those working in the system - noted children who were stood down or suspended from school before the age of 10 were significantly more likely to offend at all age groups.

The report also noted how nearly half of those expelled from school before 14 offended as a child and as a young person.

Repeatedly changing schools was also an issue in relation to offending, along with attending a lower decile school.

Ardern said it is also why increasing incomes has been so central - main benefits increased by more than 3% on April 1, according to the Government.

"This is where I'm always careful," Ardern added, however, "because I know none of us want to create this impression for instance if you're in a low income family then you end up in our criminal justice system. That is not at all what anyone here is arguing but we do know that of course there are links between social deprivation and poverty.

"We have and that is making a difference, but often these are very complex issues, so it's not just income, it's what we're doing to make sure that we have resilience in these young people and these kids as well, that in spite of the environment that they're in, that they have mentors, people they can lean on, hope that they have the option of a different future in those situations where for instance they might be gang-affiliated. Now that is tough and hard work."