Despite talk of rampant youth crime, Generation Z - that cohort of New Zealanders now in their teens and early 20s - are less likely to get into trouble with the law than any other age group in decades.

There are a small number of them who do flout the law and they tend to do it spectacularly, often by ramming a stolen vehicle into a shop and posting about it on TikTok.

This offending is highly visible, and it has a big impact on the besieged shop owners and communities around them, which is why the public rightly get alarmed.

Generally, people believe youth crime is getting worse. Surveys suggest 87 percent of New Zealanders believe it has increased in the past five years. This belief, however, is contrary to what statistics tell us.

Overall, Ministry of Justice data shows youth crime rates dropping year on year.

The trend is not always consistent, and there has been a significant post-Covid uptick, but the number of children and youths aged 16 or under coming before the courts has halved over the past decade.