What counts as harassment when you're young? A threatening text? A pattern of messages? Showing up where someone doesn't want you?

Whatever the threshold, more young people are crossing it than at any time since 2011. Charges for abduction, harassment and other offences against the person reached 1,245 in 2024, the highest level in over a decade. (Source: Stats NZ, youth-finalised-charges)

The trajectory is striking. In 2020, these charges sat at 807. By 2021, barely any change: 804. Then something shifted. In 2022, the number jumped to 1,146. A 43% increase in a single year.

It didn't stop there. 2023: 1,206 charges. 2024: 1,245. The climb has been steady and relentless since that 2022 inflection point.

This isn't about violent crime. Those numbers are tracked separately. This category captures the offences that sit just below physical violence: stalking, threatening behaviour, coercive control, abduction. The kinds of actions that make someone feel unsafe without necessarily leaving a bruise.

Three possibilities could explain the surge. First: young people are actually engaging in more of this behaviour than they were four years ago. Second: victims are more willing to report it, and police are more willing to charge. Third: the boundaries of what counts as harassment have expanded, catching behaviour that once went unnoticed.

The timing matters. 2022 was the year New Zealand emerged from the worst of COVID disruptions. Schools were back to normal. Social media had two more years to embed itself deeper into teenage life. The line between online harassment and real-world consequences became harder to ignore.

But here's what the numbers don't tell you: whether these charges stick. Youth court data shows police withdrew hundreds of thousands of charges last year across all categories. Some of these 1,245 harassment charges will have been dropped. Some will have led to diversions, warnings, community work. Some will have resulted in convictions.

What's certain is that more young people are ending up in the system for this particular type of offence than at any point since the early 2010s. Whether that reflects changing behaviour, changing enforcement, or both, the trend is undeniable.

And it's still climbing.