Australasian Drug and Alcohol Strategy Conference5 May 2017, Te Papa, Wellington

“Possession isn’t 9/10ths of the law; it’s 9/10ths of the problem!?”Influencing thinking and behaviour towards drugs and alcohol amongst children in Aotearoa/New Zealand. 

Judge Andrew BecroftChildren’s Commissioner for New Zealand Te Kaikōmihana mō ngā Tamariki o Aotearoa

A child/youth-centred approach…

Interruptions Welcome

Outline: 1. Introduction2. What I saw in the Youth Court – recurring issues for young

people. The prevalence of drug and alcohol use and dependency

3. The logical starting point: the teenage brain 4. Three recurring, background themes:

i. Poverty ii. Māori disproportionality iii. Neuro-developmental disorder prevalence – and the

teenage brain 5. Conclusion: are we getting it right?

2. What I Saw in the Youth Court…Otago Youth Wellness TrustAnalysis of Dunedin Youth Offenders: Period 1 Jan 2007 – 31 Dec 2010

Alternative Education (n=33)

• 81% male

• 49% Māori

• 76% CYF care and protection involvement

• 100% specialist mental health service involvement

• 93% poor school attendance

• 86% school suspension / expulsion

• 79% attended greater than four secondary schools / training providers

• 43% offending started aged less than twelve years

• 79% specialist drug and alcohol service involvement

• 75% early sexual activity

• 34% suicide / attempt / self harm by young person

• 46% suicide / attempt / self harm by peer or family member

Capital & Coast Youth Forensic Services Statistics: 2000 – 2004 n = 276

• 83% Male

• Māori over-represented (48%)

• 70% faced cannabis and alcohol issues

– 16% drug dependent; 14% alcohol dependent

• 18% attending school: 28% attending course/training; and 45% unemployed

• 45% excluded/expelled from school

• 55% attended more than one school/transient

• 60% in CYFS care at some stage

• 12% living with both parents; 28% with one parent

• 83% Male

• 70% from single parent families

• 41% regularly truanting

• 60% have special educational needs

• Over 50% use cannabis

• 75% smoke and drink

• 75% considered impulsive

• 25% at risk of harm as a result of their own behaviour (9% at risk of suicide)

Characteristics of Young Offenders: England & WalesAn analysis of 4,000 young offenders

Issues facing children in NZ today…through the Youth Court lens

Not an exhaustive list. It is through the lens primarily of my Youth Court experience. The extreme end – but an insight into issues that all teenagers, to some degree, will confront. Most are “laid down” or first emerge during child-hood.

• Family / whānau – issues with stable, loving and secure families; parental passivity and helplessness; and, lack of good (particularly male) role models

• School attendance and participation

• Good, pro-social friends

• Need for community connectedness

• Neuro-developmental disorders - and their high prevalence

• Income inequality – socio economic disadvantage

• Violence

• Cannabis use / drug abuse

• Use of social media

• Maori disproportionality in the key wellbeing statistics

• Values – lack of and not shared community wide.

Cannabis use / alcohol abuse

Photos courtesy of Dave Hookway

3. The logical starting point: The teenage brain Young people are almost a “different species” of human being – (and are vulnerable to alcohol and other drug use!)

2010s the “decade of the adolescent brain” ?!Recent (US) research shows that frontal lobe development (the seat of impulse control and good judgement etc) is not completed until early -20s

“New MRI scanners have looked at the brain over time to see how it matures and several studies have shown quite dramatically that the last parts to mature deal with things like logic, judgement and wisdom. Those x-rays show they may not be mature until people are 25 to 30”

– Prof Sir Peter Gluckman Liggins Institute Auckland Sunday Star Times 12/10 2008

Maturing of the Brain (as seen in MRI studies)

Cortical regions, which deal with:

Judgement Responsibility Wisdom

...do not fully mature until the second or third decade

NB: blue matter resembles maturation of cortical areas

Mismatch between puberty, psycho-sexual maturity, emotional maturity, and impulse control

Puberty = Activation of gonads. Hormonal changes leading to physical and psychological changes allowing for reproductive competence.

Girls- begins 7-12 years (never been earlier)Boys- begins 8-13 years

Adolescence= period between onset of puberty and time when accepted as an adult.

Adolescence never lasted longer in human history!

Mismatch between puberty, psycho-sexual maturity, emotional maturity, and impulse control

… BUT impulse control and judgment still developing.

“Young people have a turbo-charged body – fast, big, powerful; but don’t have a turbo-charged driver.” -Spear

• Enormous “dis-congruance” between puberty, psycho sexual maturity, and emotional development and control of impulses and development of judgment (frontal lobe development)

Amygdala v Cortex

Amygdala (emotions) v Cortex (rational thinking)

Adult Teen

Drugs and alcoholStudies of New Zealand Adolescents: • 9000 students aged

13-18: • 61% current

drinkers, 34% recently binged

• By 25 years - 20% have alcohol problems

Risk taking and self control

4. Three Recurring, Background Themes: (i) Income Inequality and Socio-Economic Disadvantage

is a consistent theme in my work!

Inequality, disadvantage and child poverty are unacceptable.

Inequality, disadvantage and child poverty are not determinative of abuse and neglect but create much higher risks.

Some micro-communities within NZ seem to have passed a tipping point – and now accept “P” and other drug use, binge drinking, partner and family violence, educational disengagement, births to un-supported teenage mothers (which create high risk), and poor child health as ‘normal’.

This is not acceptable.

Inequality, disadvantage and child poverty are complex issues … and are high risk factors for adverse life outcomes

These families and children are doing it hard

8% of children are both in low income households and in material hardship –that’s 90,000 children

Reaching our Sustainable Development Goals

Graph kindly provided by Health Quality & Safety Commissioner (HQSC)

Mortality rates in children and young people aged 28 days to 24 years by NZ Deprivation Index decile

4 (ii): An inescapable and fundamental challengeDisparity between Māori and NZ European child wellbeing rates

Child/youth policy and practice effects Māori and non-Māori equally – yeah right!

Comparison of selected measures of wellbeing between Māori and New Zealand European children

Targeting the root causes of inequity and improving outcomes for Māori children across the board will transform the New Zealand landscape for children and come closer to achieving the full implementation of the United Nations Convention on

the Rights of the Child. (Submission to the Committee on the Rights of the Child, Geneva, 2016)

Measure Māori NZ European (unless specified as non‐Māori or total NZ 

population)

18 year olds with NCEA L2 or above (2014) 67.1% 85.1%

Children in State care with NCEA Level2 or above

15% 25%

Early Childhood Education participation 92.3% 98.2%

Education:

Health: Measure Māori NZ European 

(unless specified as non‐Māori or total NZ population)

Current smokers (aged 15 above, 2013‐2014)

40.6% 15.2%

Life expectancy at birth Women: 77.1 years

Men: 73 years

Women: 83.9 years

Men: 80.3 years

Youth suicide (15‐24 years)

48.0 per 100,000 17.3 per 100,000     (non‐Māori)

Meningococcal infection(per 100,000. 2013)

All ages: 3.4

<1 year: 32.3

1‐4 years: 15.7

All ages: 1.5   (total NZ pop.)

<1 year: 18.4

1‐4 years: 5.2

Rheumatic fever (all ages, per 100,000. 2012‐2014)

13.3 4.2   (non‐Māori)

Sudden Unexpected Death in Infants (SUDI) (per 1,000 deaths. 2010‐2012)

1.8 0.4    (non‐Māori)

Measure Māori NZ European (unless specified as non‐Māori or total NZ population)

Child poverty (0‐17years, below 60% median household income, after housing costs, 2014)

33% 16%

Child material hardship (0‐17years , 2014)

24% 8%

Children in crowded housing (2014)

25% 5%

Unemployment (all ages, 2014)

12.1% 4.4%

Not in Education, Employment or training (NEET) rate (15‐24 years, 2015)

20.9% 9.4%

Youth justice: (number and percentage of children aged 10‐16 charged in court, 2014/15)

1,152 (59%) 489 (24%)

Living Standards:

4 (iii): Neurodevelopmental Disorder Prevalence

Source: “Nobody Made the Connection: The Prevalence of Neuro-disability in Young People who Offend” 2011, Report by the Children’s Commissioner of England

5. Conclusion: Drug exposure and harm - children

• There has been a 5% increase in the number of children found at Drug Dealing Houses (DDHs) in 2015 in comparison to 2014.

• However there has been an overall reduction of 27% in the number of children found compared to 5 years ago. 

• The number of children found in clandestine labs reduced by  32% compared to 2014.  This is likely in part to the overall decrease in the number of clandestine laboratories being identified. 

• Children exposed to drug dealing and other drug related activities such as manufacturing and cultivation, are likely to become the next generation of users and dealers as they grow up in an environment where this is normalised. 

Data source:  NZ National Drug Intelligence Bureau – Illicit Drug Assessment 2016 – based on 2015 occurrences

For consideration … • Children’s attitudes to, and thinking about, drugs and alcohol, represent a significant challenge.

• In all I saw in my 15 years as Principal Youth Court Judge, drug and alcohol abuse and dependency was a recurring theme.

• If we took the alcohol related cases out of the Youth Court – 70% of its workload would evaporate!

• RTD’s seem to be behind much offending.

• The need for cannabis drug use (not other drugs like “P”) fuelled most of the property offending.

• In Court, a therapeutic approach works best – as evidenced by the pioneering Youth Drug Court (began in Christchurch 2001).

• Good residential, group, and “one-to-one” counselling is also available – but arguably not enough.

The real questions are….

• Have we got our laws correctly “set” and “pitched” to protect our young people?

• What can be done to change community wide attitudes to youth “binge” drinking and alcohol abuse?

This is an enduring challenge and one that rightly challenges our nation.

“Children are the living messages we send to a time we will not see”.President John F Kennedy

4. Conclusion: Join us via:

@childrenscommnzOr search for Children’s Commissioner NZ

@OCCNZChildren’s CommNZ

Sign up on the homepage of our website 

www.occ.org.nz 

Thank You

www.occ.org.nzwww.childpoverty.org.nz