While the courts grapple with AI-generated evidence and deepfakes, a teenager in Hamilton who committed a sexual offence this year became one of just 351 young people handed court orders for sexual assault and related offences. That's the lowest number since 2014, and 28% fewer than just four years ago.

The drop is sharp and sustained. In 2020, courts issued 489 orders for youth sexual offences. By 2024, that number had fallen to 351. It's not a blip; it's a five-year slide that coincides exactly with the period when smartphones became ubiquitous in teenage life and digital evidence became central to sexual offence cases. (Source: Ministry of Justice, youth-court-orders)

Here's the uncomfortable question: are fewer young people committing these offences, or are cases becoming harder to prove in the age of disappearing messages, encrypted apps, and now AI-manipulated content?

The courts' concern about deepfakes isn't abstract. A judge can't rely on a video anymore. A screenshot can be faked. Voice recordings can be synthesised. The very technology that might capture evidence of offending can also manufacture it. And while that complicates prosecutions for all age groups, it hits youth cases particularly hard because teenagers live their entire social lives on platforms designed to make evidence vanish.

The data shows something else: this isn't about detection rates improving or police changing their approach. Youth court orders across almost every category have been falling. But sexual offences have dropped faster than most. Since the peak in 2020, orders are down by 138 cases. That's 138 fewer young offenders held accountable each year, whether because offending genuinely declined or because proving it became too difficult.

Compare this to adult sexual offence convictions, which haven't fallen at the same rate. The gap suggests something specific is happening in the youth justice system. Perhaps it's prevention working. Perhaps it's education cutting through. Or perhaps it's the reality that when both the alleged offender and the complainant are teenagers communicating on Snapchat, building a prosecutable case becomes exponentially harder.

The courts are right to worry about AI. But they should also be asking why youth sexual offence orders have fallen by nearly a third in five years. If it's because fewer young people are offending, that's a victory worth understanding and replicating. If it's because the digital evidence environment has made cases unprosecutable, that's a crisis hiding in plain sight.

Either way, 351 orders in 2024 is a number that demands explanation. The judiciary is focused on the threat AI poses to future cases. The data suggests they might already be losing cases they don't even realise are slipping away.