While the Ministry of Justice considers mobile courthouses and judges worry about AI deepfakes in court, there's a number buried in youth court data that nobody's talking about: youth homicide and related offences just hit 246 cases in 2024. That's the highest level since 1997.

To understand how sharp this spike is, look at the trajectory. In 2022, youth courts handled just 72 homicide-related cases. The next year it climbed to 120. Then in 2024 it more than doubled to 246. (Source: Ministry of Justice, youth-court-orders)

This isn't a gradual trend. This is a step-change that happened in a single year.

Youth homicide prosecutions don't track murders alone. The category includes manslaughter, attempted murder, conspiracy to murder, and accessory charges. What it measures is how many young people under 18 are being brought before youth courts on the most serious violence charges the system has.

The 2024 figure eclipses even the spike seen in 2020, when cases hit 159 during the first year of COVID disruptions. Back then, courts were managing pandemic backlogs and social services were scrambling. But 2024 had no such excuse. Courts were running. Schools were open. Yet 246 young people faced homicide-related charges.

Compare that to 2021, when the number dropped to 126, or 2022's low of just 72 cases. For two years, it looked like youth violence at the most extreme end was genuinely falling. Then 2023 reversed course. And 2024 accelerated it.

Politicians talk constantly about youth crime. They point to ram raids, retail theft, car conversions. Those crimes generate headlines and policy announcements. But homicide? That's the category that measures whether young people are involved in taking lives. And on that measure, 2024 was the worst year in a generation.

To find a comparable year, you have to go back to 1997, when youth courts were still adjusting to major legislative changes. The system looked different then. Sentencing was different. The world was different. Yet here we are, 27 years later, with the same number of young people facing the same kinds of charges.

The data doesn't explain why. It doesn't tell you whether this reflects gang recruitment, social breakdown, drug markets, or something else entirely. What it does tell you is that while the justice system debates mobile courtrooms and AI evidence, youth homicide prosecutions have quietly hit a level we haven't seen since the late 1990s.

And nobody's asking why.