While the government today announced homeless move-on orders for town centres nationwide, Youth Court data reveals a far deadlier problem: orders for homicide and related offences among young people just hit their highest point in 27 years.

In 2024, New Zealand's Youth Courts issued 246 orders for homicide and related offences. You have to go back to 1997 to find a comparable figure. (Source: Stats NZ, youth-court-orders)

The trajectory is stark. In 2022, these orders sat at just 72. Two years later, they've more than tripled. That's not a gradual climb. That's a spike.

Consider what this data actually measures: these are court orders, not arrests or charges. By the time a young person appears in Youth Court for homicide or related offences, they've already been through police, possibly held in custody, and had their case deemed serious enough for judicial intervention. These 246 orders represent the most serious youth crime outcomes our legal system records.

The recent pattern looks like this: 159 orders in 2020, then a drop to 126 in 2021, then a collapse to 72 in 2022. Anyone tracking youth justice in 2022 might have seen progress. Then 2023 reversed to 120 orders. And 2024 doubled that reversal.

What changed between 2022 and 2024? COVID restrictions lifted. The cost-of-living crisis hit hardest. Youth mental health services remained stretched. Schools struggled with attendance. But those are explanations, not excuses, and they don't change what the numbers show: more young people are involved in our most serious violent offences than at any point since the late 1990s.

This isn't about rough sleepers in town centres. It's not about broken windows or visible poverty making shoppers uncomfortable. It's about young New Zealanders committing acts violent enough to land them in Youth Court on homicide-related charges at triple the rate they were just two years ago.

The government's homeless move-on policy will clear sight lines in city centres. It won't touch this problem. Because the young people showing up in Youth Court on homicide charges aren't the same ones sleeping in doorways. They're in homes, in schools, in communities that are failing to catch them before they reach the point where a court has to intervene.

We're now at 1997 levels. That year, Youth Court orders for these offences were a national concern. A generation later, we're back there, and the political conversation is about moving homeless people along.