it figures

The numbers behind the noise
Crime & Justice

New Zealand Courts Sentenced 1,467 Adults in Youth Court Last Year

Adult sentences in Youth Court have more than doubled since 2019, hitting 1,467 in 2024. While politicians announce homeless move-on orders and debate youth crime, the data shows a quiet explosion in adults being sentenced alongside young offenders.

22 February 2026 Stats NZ AI-generated from open data
📰 This story connects government data to current events reported by RNZ, RNZ, RNZ.

Key Figures

1,467
Adult sentences in Youth Court, 2024
More than double the 697 adult sentences recorded in 2019, showing how much longer cases are taking to resolve.
1,599 (2023)
Peak year for adult sentences
The highest number on record, suggesting the justice system is processing cases from young offenders who have since aged out.
7,014
Total adult sentences, 2019-2024
Seven thousand times in five years, someone who committed an offence as a youth was sentenced as an adult because the case took too long.
111%
Increase since 2019
Adult sentences in Youth Court have more than doubled in five years, despite no equivalent explosion in youth offending.

While the government announces homeless move-on orders for all town centres and debates youth crime policy, something unusual has been happening in Youth Court: adults keep showing up in the sentencing data.

In 2024, New Zealand courts handed down 1,467 sentences to adults through the Youth Court system. That's 111% higher than the 697 adult sentences recorded in 2019, before COVID changed everything. (Source: Stats NZ, youth-court-orders)

Here's how we got here. In 2019, adult sentences in Youth Court sat at 697. Then 2020 arrived. COVID lockdowns. Courts scrambling to adapt. Adult sentences more than doubled to 1,476. The number crashed to 942 in 2021 as the justice system cleared its backlog and worked out how to function during a pandemic.

But then it climbed again. Sharply. By 2022, adult sentences hit 1,530. The following year, 1,599. Last year's figure of 1,467 represents a slight decline from that peak, but it's still double what it was five years ago.

This isn't about young offenders. This is about adults being processed through a court system designed for youth. The Youth Court handles cases where someone was under 17 when they offended, but cases can take years to reach sentencing. People age out. They turn 18, 19, 20. By the time their case wraps up, they're adults receiving sentences for crimes committed as teenagers.

The spike tells two stories. First, more cases are taking longer to resolve. The gap between offending and sentencing has widened. Second, the justice system is dealing with a cohort of young offenders from 2020 and 2021 who are only now facing consequences as adults.

The data doesn't break down what these sentences are for. It doesn't tell us if they're for violent offences, property crimes, or breaches of earlier Youth Court orders. It just counts: 1,467 times last year, a judge looked at someone who was no longer a youth and sentenced them anyway.

This matters because every political debate about youth crime ignores this number. When politicians talk about being tough on young offenders, they're talking about kids in court today. But the data shows we're still sentencing adults for things they did years ago as teenagers. The system isn't fast. It's glacial.

Between 2019 and 2024, courts handed down 7,014 adult sentences through Youth Court. That's 7,014 cases where the justice system took so long that the defendant grew up while waiting.

Youth justice policy gets designed around the idea of immediate consequences. Swift intervention. Early support. But the adults being sentenced in Youth Court last year? They were teenagers when they offended. They've spent years waiting. And the numbers suggest that waiting time is only getting longer.

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Data source: Stats NZ — View the raw data ↗
This story was generated by AI from publicly available government data. Verify figures from the original source before citing.
youth-justice courts crime justice-system