While New Zealand unveils its first national infrastructure plan and politicians dominate headlines with law-and-order rhetoric, one category of youth crime has quietly collapsed to levels not seen since the mid-1990s.

Sexual assault and related offences processed through youth court dropped to 351 cases in 2024 — down 28% from 489 cases just four years earlier. (Source: Ministry of Justice, youth-court-orders)

To understand how we got here, you need to go back three decades. In 1992, when this dataset begins, youth court handled 283 sexual assault cases. Through the 1990s, numbers climbed steadily — hitting 394 by 1999. The early 2000s saw relative stability, hovering between 350 and 400 cases annually.

Then came the 2010s. Cases began creeping upward. By 2017, they'd reached 468. The peak arrived in 2020: 489 cases, the highest count in the entire 32-year dataset.

What happened next defies the narrative that youth offending is spiralling. Cases dropped to 402 in 2021. Rebounded slightly to 459 in 2022. Fell to 429 in 2023. Then plummeted to 351 in 2024 — a single-year drop of 18%.

That 351 figure is the lowest since 1994, when New Zealand had 279 cases. Adjusted for population growth over those 30 years, the decline becomes even starker. Today's youth are appearing in court for sexual assault offences at rates we haven't seen since before the internet existed.

This isn't about unreported crime — youth court data tracks prosecutions, not complaints. These are cases that made it through police investigation, charging decisions, and court processes. The system is catching fewer young offenders committing these specific crimes.

Several factors likely contribute. Prevention programmes in schools expanded significantly through the 2010s. Consent education became standard curriculum. Police youth aid approaches shifted toward diversion for lower-level offences, though serious sexual assault cases wouldn't typically qualify for diversion.

The 2020 peak coincided with COVID-19's first year — a period of heightened social stress, disrupted routines, and increased time spent in home environments where abuse often occurs. The subsequent decline suggests those specific pressures eased.

But here's the tension: this data exists in a political environment where youth crime dominates headlines, where court cases become national news, where voters consistently rank law and order as a top concern.

The numbers don't support panic. They support the opposite. In this category — one of the most serious types of offending — youth crime is falling, not rising. Politicians campaigning on youth crime chaos need to explain why sexual assault cases are at 30-year lows while their rhetoric suggests the country's falling apart.

The data doesn't lie. It just doesn't get the same airtime as the outrage.