The Social Barometer

Despite the historical belief that sexual offending during adolescence was “experimentation”, data would indicate otherwise. A random community sample of adult women reported that 25% of the sexual abuse reported by 500 women was perpetrated by adolescents aged 18 years and younger. Similarly, Mullen et al (1991:2) state that: “teenage offenders were a large and often quite violent group, who carried out one quarter of the offences”. New Zealand Police statistics indicate that for the years 2000 to 2005, youth under the age of 17 years committed on average 15% of all sexual offences in New Zealand (Statistics New Zealand 2005).

[p10, Getting It Right, August 2007]