A study into Youth Court supervision orders has found they can be effective in reducing repeat offending.
The Social Development Ministry report said that a small number of young criminals were responsible for up to 60 percent of youth crime and that offenders who were placed on a Supervision with Activity order were less likely to commit another offence within six months.
Social Development Minister Paula Bennett said that the work showed the Governments "Fresh Start" legislation was urgently needed.
The Bill currently before Parliament allows Youth Courts to issue new orders addressing parenting education, mentoring and drug and alcohol treatment, as well as longer orders requiring residence or supervised activity.
The courts will also be able to deal with 12- and 13-year-olds accused of serious offences.
"The key findings of the report include and acknowledgement that young people who re-offend usually did so in the two years following a court order," Ms Bennett said.
The study found:
*The majority of young offenders who received a first Youth Court supervision order between January 2002 and June 2007 were male (87 percent) and aged 15 or 16 years old (34 percent and 44 percent respectively). Maori (55 percent) were over-represented relative to their proportions in the population aged 14 to 16 years. Approximately 90 percent of the offences leading to the Youth Court supervision order were of maximum or medium/maximum seriousness. The majority of offences were categorised as violent (42 percent) or property (50 percent) offences.
* Young people who re-offended usually did so in the first two years after the supervision order was imposed, and the likelihood of re-offending after this was very much lower. * Four out of five of the young people re-offended within the follow-up period.
* On average, the re-offending was less serious than the offence that led to the initial supervision order.
* Offenders who had a supervision with activity order were less likely to commit another offence within six months of the start of the order than were those on supervision.
* Boys were more likely than girls to re-offend across all time periods.
* The Southern CYF region tended to have higher re-offending rates than Northern, Midlands and Central. * Young people were more likely to re-offend if the offence leading to the Youth Court supervision order was scored as medium/maximum seriousness than as maximum seriousness.
* Those whose index offence was categorised as property had higher re-offending rates than those with violent offences.
* Male youth offenders re-offended sooner than their female counterparts; European and Maori youth offenders committed another offence sooner than their Pacific counterparts; and youth in the CYF Southern region re-offended sooner than those in the Northern, Midlands or Central regions.
* For those young people who re-offended, the number of offences committed following a Youth Court supervision order ranged between one and 19, with most re-offenders committing one (21 percent to 25 percent) or two (17 percent to 22 percent) subsequent offences.
* Eighty-four percent of the re-offenders went on to commit offences as early adults, although proportionally fewer young people who had been in a youth justice residence did so.
