Police have identified 12 ram raids in April 2024, compared to 64 in April 2023.

Provisional police data from April 2017 to April 2024 shows a downwards trend since the peak in August 2022, when there were 86.

There were a total of 433 ram raids in 2022, 288 in 2023, and 67 in the first four months of this year. Read more

Judge Frances Eivers says child welfare and criminality are social issues and increasing poverty cannot go ignored.

Her comments come on the day of new ram raids - including one in which a digger was used to smash through the front of a petrol station in Wainuiomata and another in which three teenagers and a 20-year-old were arrested after fleeing the scene of a burglary north of Auckland, ramming police cars and driving on the wrong side of the road on the motorway.

"We'd be very surprised to find that any of these young people came from one of the leafy suburbs in Auckland where they've got plenty of food in the cupboard, where their disposable income is good, where they've got money not just to pay the rent or mortgage but to buy extras," Eivers said. Read more