A study has provided a startling look into the link between youth involved in ram-raids and family harm. 

The Police National Youth Team prepared notes for the Children's Commissioner about the relationship between family harm and youths identified in recent ram-raid events. 

A sample of 63 children and young people was drawn from those involved in ram-raids in Christchurch, the Bay of Plenty, Auckland, and Waikato, in the year to May 2022. 

Their ages ranged from 10 to 18 years old, with an average of 14.4. 

More than 95 per cent were linked to at least one family harm event before first coming to police attention as a suspect or offender, the study found. 

They were, on average, about four years old at this first contact with police. 

Sixty-five per cent of the sample were linked to five or more family harm events, and 35 per cent were linked to more than 10 events. 

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Stuff: Youth justice facilities are full amid ram raid spike, Parliament told 

Amid a spate of youth crime, Oranga Tamariki has told Parliament its youth justice residences are at capacity and this could be contributing to more offending. 

Police, Oranga Tamariki and Ministry of Justice officials were called to Parliament’s Justice Select Committee to answer MPs’ questions on youth crime and what they were doing to bring an end to the spike in youth crime. 

Assistant Police Commissioner Chris de Wattignar said the spike was almost exclusive to Auckland, which has seen brazen attacks in shopping malls, and on dairies and other stores this year. 

The main reasons for the spike were the effects of lockdowns, pandemic stress and the prevalence of family violence, he said. 

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NZ Herald: Ram raids and youth crime: Top police, Oranga Tamariki officials urge long-term commitment to address issues 

Police have rejected National MPs' claims that dropping youth offending rates are based on a "don't ask don't tell approach" and that youth are getting off scot-free for their crimes. 

Representatives from police, the Ministry of Justice and Oranga Tamariki fronted politicians this morning at the Justice Committee to discuss trends in youth crime. 

During the meeting top officials also urged politicians to commit to long-term approaches and resourcing to tackling youth offending, including continuing the joint agency wrap-around service Kotahi te Whakaaro. 

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Stuff: Colonisation impacts 'far from over', human rights commissioner says 

Aotearoa is bottom of the list of countries in the Pacific when it comes to people’s human rights to own and enjoy indigenous lands. 

The new data, released by the Human Rights Measurement Initiative (HRMI) on Wednesday, looked at human rights scores in relation to the climate crisis, indigenous sovereignty, indigenous lands, cultural rights and violence across 13 countries in the Pacific. 

The data, collected in 2022 based on the situation in 2021, showed Aotearoa lagged behind many other Pacific countries especially over the question of land and also indigenous sovereignty. 

The biggest improvements in Aotearoa, compared with 2020 data, was violence against children and violence against rainbow communities, while its biggest drop was violence against people with disabilities, then violence against women and girls. 

Despite an improvement, Aotearoa still ranked sixth of the 13 countries for violence against children and against rainbow people. 

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Newshub: Petition presented to Parliament calling for reform of consent laws 

Former Speaker of the House Trevor Mallard has admitted to a group of sexual violence prevention advocates that his work on consent legislation has not worked. 

The group's petition for an overhaul of consent laws was presented to Parliament on Tuesday. They said the current laws are failing sexual assault survivors. 

Current laws only define what consent isn't. There's no legal age for it and in a trial, the accused does not have to prove consent. 

"They have to prove that they believe consent was given, not that it actually was, and that's extremely detrimental," said the founder of the Consent Law Reform Movement, Layba Zubair. 

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Bay of Plenty Times: Mates and Dates: Funding cut for consent and healthy relationship programme 

A decision to stop funding a programme teaching teens about consent and healthy relationships has been described as a "disservice to our young people" by a sexual harm support service leader. 

The chief executive of Bay organisation Tautoko Mai said the move would "cut a key pillar" of sexual harm prevention at a time when it was "such a massive issue in young people's lives". 

However, ACC, which funded the Mates and Dates programme, said it did not reach students equally and that the Ministry of Education would become the lead agency for consent education. 

In a media release, ACC said the programme would end in December as the organisation "extended investment into consent and healthy relationships in a multifaceted, nationwide approach". 

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The Spinoff: Prisoner numbers are down: let’s not go back to a ‘lock ’em up’ mindset 

After hitting a peak of nearly 11,000 in early March 2018, the prison population now sits comfortably below 8,000. It is the most dramatic reduction in prison numbers in New Zealand’s history. 

The key metric here ought be Māori. 

Māori overrepresentation in criminal justice is a key indicator of the country’s health. Not because reductions here point to improvements in offending, but because the tributaries that create the river to prison are a plethora of social and economic issues that blight Māori, such as overcrowded housing, intergenerational poverty, state care abuse and failure, drug and alcohol addiction, domestic violence, educational failure, and racism. If we see improvement in criminal justice figures, it will certainly show improvements across healthy community measures. 

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RNZ: More people living in emergency housing for longer, some for up to two years 

Emergency housing is supposed to be short-term for those most in need, but some residents have now lived in motels for two years or longer - with no immediate end in sight. 

While it puts a roof over the head of some of New Zealand's most vulnerable, not all are safe from violence, gang activity and intimidation. Furthermore, taxpayer dollars continue to pour into moteliers' pockets with the bill topping a billion dollars since Labour took office in 2017. 

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Stuff: Behind the effort to research the mental health of our Asian communities 

Mehwish Mughal was born in Pakistan and in 2003, migrated with her three younger sisters to Aotearoa. She's a researcher and activist with a particular interest in mental health. Mughal is leading an Asian mental health project at Te Papa, supported by its curator of Asian New Zealand histories Dr Grace Gassin. 

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Stuff: Man wins Family Court case to be unadopted from his abusive ex-father 

After 65 years, a North Island man no longer has to call the abusive man who adopted him father. 

It’s taken the man years to get the Family Court to discharge the adoption which took place in 1957. It’s a rare move as the Attorney-General must approve it before the court can consider it. 

His mother, a solo mum, married a man in the 1950s who adopted him. But he turned out to be abusive to them both. 

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Stuff: Auckland man accused of wrapping 3-year-old boy up with packing tape 

An Auckland man has been charged after allegedly wrapping his son’s entire body up with tape. 

The 29-year-old Glenfield resident is facing two charges of assault and injuring with intent. 

One of the assault charges relates to the man allegedly wrapping packing tape around the body of a 3-year-old boy in August 2022. 

Court documents suggest the alleged offending likely caused the boy emotional distress and physical suffering when the tape was removed. 

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NZ Herald: For a vicious assault on his partner, a Taranaki man was jailed the same day their baby was born 

As a baby boy was being brought into the world, his father was in court being jailed for beating the newborn's mother. The whānau's poignant day was labelled a tragedy by the sentencing judge who said prison was the only option. 

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NZ Herald: Father jailed for grooming, sexually abusing daughter from age six 

WARNING: This story details incest and may be upsetting. 

A father who watched pornography including incest porn whenever he was stressed, has been jailed for grooming and touching his daughter for more than 10 years. 

It only came to light when she told her mother and he turned himself in to police. 

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Stuff: Bad boyfriend jailed for blackmail, abuse of partners 

Graphic warning: Descriptions of violence. 

A man who covertly filmed himself and his girlfriend having sex later blackmailed her by threatening to send the footage to another man she was talking to. 

Farryn Tangira later told another girlfriend that if she broke up with him, he would rape her sister before making her watch him kill her sister and her mother. 

Tangira, 20, was sentenced to two years and four months in jail when he appeared in the Hamilton District Court on Tuesday, after earlier pleading guilty to a raft of charges including kidnapping, blackmail, making an intimate visual recording of another person, assault with intent to injure, male assaults female and obtaining by deception. 

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Northern Advocate: Northland man who sexually abused his daughter, jailed for 10 years, three months 

WARNING: DISTRESSING CONTENT 

The mother of a girl sexually abused by her father had stern words for his supporters in court telling them to remove her daughter from their family tree. 

The girl's father, who cannot be named, was jailed for 10 years and three months when he appeared for sentence by Judge Deidre Orchard in the Whangārei District Court. 

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NZ Herald: Man who claimed sex with 12yo was consensual will be locked up for 21 years 

WARNING: This story discusses sexual abuse and may be upsetting. 

A woman who was raped as a child by a man who claimed the sex was consensual says he is a monster. 

"Do you know how hard that was for me?" she asked him as he appeared in court today to be sentenced. 

"Do you know how I felt? No, because you are a monster who takes everything, I was just a child," the now 24-year-old said. 

Samoan national Tulisi Leiataua was today jailed for 21 years for the rape and sexual violation of two girls who were aged 8 and 12 when the abuse started. 

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