A fatal shooting in a Christchurch home. A coroner ordering an inquest into four youth motocross deaths. (as reported by RNZ, February 2026) The headlines keep coming, and so do the calls for tougher youth justice laws.

But here's what nobody's talking about: we're already doing that. The number of young people sentenced as adults in New Zealand courts hit 1,467 in 2024 — more than double the pre-pandemic baseline. (Source: Ministry of Justice, youth-court-orders)

In 2019, before COVID, New Zealand courts issued 695 adult sentences to young offenders. By 2024, that number had climbed to 1,467. That's a 111% increase in five years. We're sending more kids through the adult justice system than we have in recent memory, yet the perception that we're "soft on youth crime" persists.

The trajectory is telling. Adult sentences for youth offenders spiked to 1,476 in 2020 as courts resumed post-lockdown. They dipped slightly in 2021 during Delta restrictions, then surged: 1,530 in 2022, peaking at 1,599 in 2023. The 2024 figure of 1,467 represents a modest decline from that peak, but it's still more than twice the 2019 level.

So if we're already treating far more young people as adults in the justice system — handing them sentences that follow them into adulthood — why does it feel like nothing's changed?

Because the loudest voices in the youth crime debate aren't interested in what the courts are actually doing. They're interested in what sells: fear, outrage, and the sense that someone isn't doing enough. The data tells a different story. New Zealand has significantly escalated its approach to youth offending over the past five years. We've more than doubled the rate at which we impose adult consequences on young people.

That doesn't mean it's working. A 111% increase in adult sentences hasn't prevented tragedies like the ones dominating this week's news. What it does mean is that the next politician who promises to "get tough" on youth crime should be asked a simple question: tougher than what? Tougher than doubling the number of kids we're already sending into the adult system?

The numbers don't lie. We've been getting tougher for five years. If that was the solution, we wouldn't still be reading these headlines.