Hon Karen Chhour
Minister for Children

Hon Paul Goldsmith
Minister of Justice

New quarterly data shows the Government is on track to deliver on both law and order targets ahead of schedule, Minister for Children Karen Chhour and Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith say.

“We’re determined to protect communities, reduce victimisation, and to encourage young people not to continue down the path of serious crime and incarceration,” Mrs Chhour says.

“A year ago we set a target of reducing the number of children and young people with serious and persistent offending behaviour by 15 per cent by 2029.

“A 13 per cent reduction in the most recent quarter shows we are hot on the heels of achieving our goal.

“We’ve trialled bold new responses to this long-standing issue and have ensured agencies work in greater collaboration with each other.

“Proactive data-driven regional responses have also helped. It has truly been a team effort.

“Budget 2025 saw further investment in multiple complementary ways to address recidivism amongst young people, including future iterations of the military-style academies and the Youth Serious Offender declaration.

“We continue to want better for, and from, these young people. This is a strong start, but we’re committed to sustained and meaningful success for our communities.”

“This success comes off the back of the Government tracking ahead of its violent crime reduction target,” Mr Goldsmith says.

“Our Government has wasted no time overhauling a culture of excuses left behind by the last administration. Victims are our priority, and we’ve returned them to the heart of the justice system.

“The latest New Zealand Crime and Victims Survey shows that for the year to February, there were 157,000 victims of violent crime. This is 28,000 fewer victims than the baseline set in October 2023. Specifically, there were 12,000 fewer victims in Auckland and 5,000 fewer in Canterbury.

“There is a lot more work to do, but these results are a good early sign we are heading in the right direction.

“We’ve provided police and the courts with extra tools to go after gangs, brought back a revised three strikes sentencing regime, restored real consequences for crime by limiting sentence discounts, and scrapped Section 27 reports.

“We do, however, expect the data to remain volatile, and there’s still more work to do to continue driving these numbers down.”

Updated Government Target data is available here.

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