KEY POINTS:
Principal Youth Court Judge Andrew Becroft responds to figures on the number of young people arrested.
Judge Becroft says youth offending is a flag for the future but some media and politicians have failed to present informed information on the debate.
"The rates of youth apprehensions overall are declining. Rates are as low as they have been for the last 10 years," Mr Becroft said.
He said top-end violent crime has increased but that trend is generally mirrored in the rest of the population.
But while serious assaults had increased, the new statistics include the lowest rate of overall police apprehensions, including property offending, and a considerable drop in burglary from 2005.
Mr Becroft said the real question is why is top-end violence is increasing across the community as a whole?
"I'm not a social scientist but there are some real questions that the community has got to be asking about why violence at all levels is going up," Mr Becroft said.
Mr Becroft is a member of the ministerial taskforce on Youth Offending.
He said the profile of the serious youth offender is male, dependent on drugs and alcohol, not at school, from disadvantaged families and disproportionately Maori.
He said that was who he was seeing in the youth court but holistic approaches that involved working with the young offender and their family were working.
"Turning a young offender's life around can't happen unless their family is turned around as well," he said.
Judge Becroft said there needs to be an informed debate.
"I'm not a defender of the statistics, much less the system but I think it's important that the necessary debate is informed and based on the best statistics we've got," he said.
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