The government announced today that homeless move-on orders will extend beyond Auckland to all town centres nationwide. The timing is stark: youth court data just released shows homicide and related offences reached 246 cases in 2024, the highest level since 1997.

That's more than double the 120 cases recorded in 2023. It's also more than triple the 72 cases in 2022, which was the lowest point in the entire 27-year dataset. (Source: Stats NZ, youth-court-orders)

The trajectory tells a story politicians aren't talking about. In 2020, youth court homicide orders sat at 159. They dropped to 126 in 2021, then collapsed to 72 in 2022. That collapse looked like progress. Then 2023 reversed it: 120 cases. Now 2024 has blown past every year since the late 1990s.

This isn't about crime in general. This is specifically about the most serious violent offences reaching youth court: homicide, manslaughter, attempted murder, accessory to murder. These are cases where a young person is being held legally accountable for the worst outcomes.

The 246 figure is a youth court number, which means it reflects children and teenagers. Adults charged with homicide go through a different system. So when this number spikes, it's telling you something specific about young offenders and serious violence.

Context matters here. The government's policy response to visible disorder has focused on move-on powers and public space control. But the youth court data suggests the more urgent question is what happened between 2022 and 2024 to reverse a steep decline in the most serious youth violence.

To find a comparable year, you have to rewind to 1997, when New Zealand had a smaller population and a different youth justice system. The 2024 figure isn't just high by recent standards. It's high by historical ones.

The question nobody's asking in today's policy announcements: if homicide-related youth court orders can drop by 55% in two years (2020 to 2022), what caused them to more than triple in the next two? And if the answer involves social conditions, housing instability, or gaps in youth support services, how does expanding move-on powers address any of that?

The 2024 spike is too large to ignore and too recent to dismiss as a statistical blip. It represents 246 cases where the justice system determined a young person was involved in a homicide or related offence. That's 246 families, 246 victims, 246 trajectories that ended in the youth court.

The government is announcing its response to visible disorder. The data is showing a spike in the deadliest youth offending in nearly three decades. Those are two different problems.