Justice Minister Judith Collins has welcomed today’s release of six-monthly data on appearances and actions within the Youth Court, and criminal and sentencing data for the District and High Court.

Ms Collins says the results show declining volumes of people, particularly young people, entering the court system, and shows the Government’s focus on reducing crime is working.

“Recorded crime continues to fall – we have the lowest crime rate since 1982. The flow-on effect is that we are seeing fewer criminal charges laid and fewer people in court.

“I am particularly pleased to see fewer children and young people being charged with an offence and appearing in court - down by as much as 25 per cent on last year.

“We’ve also seen the conviction rate continue to rise – the proportion of charges resulting in a conviction has increased from 70 per cent in 2008 to 74 per cent in 2012.

“These results are simply fantastic - good work is being done right across the justice sector. This Government is delivering on our objectives of reducing crime and the numbers of people entering the criminal justice system,” Ms Collins says.

Conviction and Sentencing Statistics for the year to June 2012 show the:

• number of criminal charges laid in court continues to decrease, down 8 per cent since June 2011

• number of people charged in court continues to decrease, down 8 per cent since June 2011

• conviction rate continues to increase. The proportion of charges resulting in conviction has increased from 70 per cent in June 2008 to 74 per cent in June 2012.

Child and Youth Prosecution Statistics for the year to June 2012 show the:

• number of children and young people appearing in court decreased by 8 per cent (from 3651 to 3345)

• number of children and young people charged with an offence has decreased across most offence types. The biggest decrease is the offence of ‘Dangerous or negligent acts endangering persons’ which is down 25 per cent from 516 charges in June 2011, to 387 charges in June 2012.

The Conviction and Sentencing Statistics and Child and Youth Prosecution Statistics are available from the Statistics New Zealand website.