While the government expands move-on orders nationwide and Taranaki police retreat from hostile car meets, here's what's actually happening inside youth courts: judges are using fines, confiscations, and driving bans less than they have in over a decade.

In 2024, youth courts imposed 948 monetary penalties, confiscation orders, or disqualifications. That's down from 1,086 the year before and 1,194 in 2022. It's the lowest count since 2014, when the figure sat at 813. (Source: Stats NZ, youth-court-orders)

These aren't trivial measures. Monetary penalties include fines and reparation orders. Confiscations mean the court seizes property connected to an offence. Disqualifications typically strip a young person's right to drive. All three are meant to hit hard enough that a young offender thinks twice before reoffending.

So why the drop? Youth courts didn't suddenly go soft. The bigger picture shows a system moving away from punitive financial penalties for young people, particularly as evidence mounts that fines often punish families more than offenders. A teenager ordered to pay $500 in reparation rarely has $500. Their parents do.

The 20% year-on-year decline also coincides with broader drops in youth offending. But the trajectory of monetary penalties is steeper than the overall decline in youth court activity. In 2020, courts imposed 1,110 such orders. By 2024, that number fell 15% even as political rhetoric around youth crime intensified.

What's replacing fines and confiscations? The data doesn't say explicitly, but youth justice advocates have long pushed for non-financial interventions: community work, restorative justice conferences, mentoring programmes. These don't show up in a monetary penalty dataset, but they're increasingly favoured by judges who see them as more effective at preventing reoffending.

Meanwhile, the public conversation about youth crime remains stuck in a loop. Politicians call for tougher measures. Police face off with hostile crowds at car meets. Councils get new powers to move people along. None of this changes what's happening quietly in courtrooms: fewer young people are being fined, having their cars seized, or losing their licences.

The tension is stark. On one side, louder enforcement, broader powers, more visible crackdowns. On the other, youth courts steadily pulling back from the kinds of penalties that look tough but often don't work. The data shows which direction the justice system is actually moving. The headlines suggest something else entirely.