Justice Centre | 19 Aitken Street
DX SX10088 | Wellington
T 04 918 8800 |
F 04 918 8820
[email address] |
www.justice.govt.nz
23 May 2025
Anja Shearer-Sonier
[FYI request #30794 email]
Ref: OIA 121504
Tēnā koe Anja
Official Information Act request: Rangātahi Courts
Thank you for your email of 21 April 2025 to the Ministry of Justice (the Ministry) requesting,
under the Official Information Act 1982 (the Act), information about the Rangātahi Courts.
Your request is set out below and has been numbered for ease of reference:
All data and information held by the Ministry relating to the Rangā
tahi Courts, including:
1. Number of
a. people and
b. cases.
2. The a. age and
b. number of charges of the individual rangā
tahi.
3. Outcomes.
4. Any data the Ministry holds comparing Rangā
tahi Court outcomes to Youth Court
outcomes.
5. Criteria for using the Rangā
tahi Court process and the grounds that rangā
tahi may
be excluded.
6. Any evaluations commissioned of the Rangā
tahi Courts.
Before responding to your specific requests, I wil provide you with some general information
about the Rangātahi Court, Te Koti Rangātahi (TKR) and how it operates within the jurisdiction
of the Youth Court of New Zealand.
All young people charged with an offence will appear first in the Youth Court. Generally, after
the young person has admitted the charge and following a Family Group Conference (FGC),
the young person may be eligible for the TKR process. Like the mainstream Youth Court
process, the TKR monitors the performance of FGC plans and, when appropriate, wil apply
sentencing options available to the Youth Court.
It is important to understand that the TKR is not a separate or adjunct legal process to the
Youth Court. Section 72 (1) of the District Court Act 2016, allows a Judge to hold a sit ing of
the Court at any place they deem appropriate, enabling sit ings to be held on marae.
Accordingly, the process operates consistently with the principles set out in the Oranga
Tamariki Act 1989 (the Act) and applies the same law and procedures as any other Youth
Court proceeding.
Because of this, appearances in TKR are only recorded as an event type (youth court sit ing
held on the marae) in the courts case management system (CMS).
In response to part 1(a) of your request, for the number of people in TKR, the Ministry can
provide you with the number of first appearances in TKR. Please refer to table one, attached.
Please note the first TKR commenced in Gisborne in May 2008, however prior to 2009 data
was captured manually by the court. The Ministry is able to provide data from January 2009
when the information was recorded in CMS.
In response to part 2(a) of your request, for the age of individual rangātahi, please refer to
table two, attached. This provides the age of participants at their first appearance in TKR,
between 1 January 2009 and 4 May 2025.
In response to part 1(b) of your request, for the number of cases in TKR, and 2 (b) of your
request, for the number of charges of individual rangātahi, I can advise that the Ministry does
not report on this information. Providing this information would require a complex query and
or specialised knowledge to extract the information from CMS used by the courts. The
Act enables people to request official information from Ministers and agencies, including
the Ministry. However, the Act only applies to information that is already held, and the
Ministry is not required to create information in order to respond to a request. To gather this
information the Ministry would need to create a new reporting category, which is outside of
the scope of the Act.
Therefore, these parts of your request are refused under section 18(g)(i) of the Act, as the
information requested is not held by the Ministry and I have no grounds for believing it is held
by another agency subject to the Act.
In response to part 3 of your request, for outcomes, I can advise that the Ministry does not
report on this information. As previously noted, TKR is not a separate court to the Youth
Court. Al outcomes are identified as Youth Court outcomes in CMS. Providing this
information would require a complex query and/or specialised knowledge to extract the
information from CMS) used by the courts. Therefore, this part of your request is refused
under section 18(g)(i) of the Act, as the information requested is not held by the Ministry and
I have no grounds for believing it is held by another agency subject to the Act.
In response to part 4 of your request, for data comparing Rangātahi Court outcomes to
Youth Court outcomes, as previously advised TKR operate within the jurisdiction of the
Youth Court, and as such, they are not comparable. Therefore, this part of your request is
refused under section 18(e) of the Act, as the information requested does not exist.
In response to part 5 of your request seeking the criteria for using the TKR process and any
grounds that
Rangā
tahi may be excluded, I can advise that the decision to refer a young
person to TKR is an exercise of judicial discretion based on relevant factors.
These factors include:
• Consideration of the recommendations of the FGC.
• The wishes of the young person and his or her whānau.
• The victim’s views.
• Submissions made on behalf of Police or the Crown, and Oranga Tamariki; and
• The level of support in the community that can be provided for the young person and
his or her whānau by local marae and iwi providers.
• Other factors that may be relevant on a case-by-case basis
Part 6 of your request is refused under section 18(d) of the Act, as the information requested
is publicly available on the Ministry’s website at:
EVALUATION OF NGĀ KOOTI
RANGATAHI.
Please note that this response, with your personal details removed, may be published on the
Ministry’s website at:
Official Information Act responses | New Zealand Ministry of Justice
If you are not satisfied with this response, you have the right to make a complaint to the
Ombudsman under section 28 of the Act. The Office of the Ombudsman may be contacted
by email t
o [email address] or by phone on 0800 802 602.
Nāku noa, nā
Jacquelyn Shannon
Group Manager, Courts and Tribunals, Regional Service Delivery
Table 1: Number of first appearances at Rangātahi Courts, broken down by year of first appearance and Court location, between 1 January 2009 and 4 May 2025
Rangatahi Court
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
2015
2016
2017
2018
2019
2020
2021
2022
2023
2024
2025*
Te Poho-o-Rāwiri (Gisborne)
37
39
26
27
26
25
15
25
27
20
18
3
3
1
-
-
1
Manurewa (Manukau)
7
36
46
57
38
35
43
41
44
31
32
12
4
-
21
18
2
ACT 1982
Hoani Waititi (Waitākere)
-
57
25
21
21
24
26
46
29
15
22
16
9
14
20
27
6
Ōwae (New Plymouth)
-
10
14
20
5
9
12
15
7
8
4
8
11
1
2
2
1
Kirikiriroa (Hamilton)
-
13
31
20
35
33
24
33
32
38
21
27
16
19
22
22
5
Ōrākei (Auckland)
-
6
18
15
13
20
20
9
13
15
10
4
3
10
8
10
6
Mataatua (Whakatāne)
-
-
11
24
17
20
16
19
17
10
7
16
9
11
13
16
3
Pukekohe (Pukekohe)
-
-
4
8
4
9
7
3
5
1
2
2
3
-
-
-
-
Te Arawa (Rotorua)
-
-
-
29
25
31
31
43
31
26
28
31
32
36
33
40
6
Papakura (Papakura)
-
-
-
11
23
21
23
13
12
7
9
5
6
2
14
6
5
INFORMATION
Rāhui Pōkeka (Huntly)
-
-
-
-
-
11
10
5
14
8
4
7
5
6
13
5
-
Ōtautahi (Christchurch)
-
-
-
-
-
17
16
23
17
17
9
19
22
22
26
21
5
Tauranga Moana (Tauranga)
-
-
-
-
-
-
27
8
14
19
14
10
17
11
10
19
2
Tūwharetoa (Taupō)
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
11
5
4
3
5
5
2
10
9
4
Whangarei (Whangārei)
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
12
13
13
8
3
15
3
1
Hastings Rangātahi
(Hastings)
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
7
17
6
10
9
3
Total
44
161
175
232
207
255
270
294
267
231
196
185
170
144
217
207
50
Notes:
•
This table provides data on the number of participants at Rangātahi Courts.
•
This table counts each participant once only, by location and year of their first appearance in a Rangātahi court.
•
'A dash '-' indicates that there were no first appearances in that calendar year for that court.
•
*2025 is a partial year, with data counted until 4 May 2025.
RELEASED UNDER THE OFFICIAL
Table 2: Age of participants at their first appearance in the Rangātahi Court, from 1 January 2009 to 4 May 2025
Age at first appearance
Number of participants
1982
14
677
15
1,112
16
1,003
17
450
ACT
Unknown/error
90
Notes:
• This table provides data on the age of participants at Rangātahi Courts.
• Data is extracted from a live dataset that is used for operational purposes, meaning the data wil be updated with late data entry. Therefore, this data may differ to data reported elsewhere with a different extraction date. These tables
were extracted on 5 May 2025.
• This data counts the age of each participant once, as at their first appearance in a Rangātahi Court.
• 'Unknown/error' is counted when the age recorded was below 14 or above 17. Anyone outside this age group is not eligible for the Rangātahi Court, and there may have been an error at data entry.
INFORMATION
OFFICIAL
THE
UNDER
RELEASED
Document Outline
