Gadgets leading to violence

Addiction to electronic devices appears to be fuelling an increase in serious violence caused by young people within the family home.

Triggered by disputes over devices, when parents put their foot down to limit access to the internet the reaction can be extreme – leading to property damage, serious assaults and threats to kill.

Nelson lawyer John Sandston, who was formerly the New Zealand Law Society’s inaugural youth justice spokesperson and has been a youth advocate for 25 years, said the trend seemed to have ‘‘come out of nowhere’’.

‘‘I can’t think of a case [in the Youth Court] in the past year or two where it hasn’t related to either a gadget such as a phone, or a game, or internet usage.

‘‘The impression from my work is there is a hell of lot of physical and verbal violence, where kids are reacting badly to boundary settings by parents around gadgets.’’

Sandston said while some of the cases he had covered involved children with mental health issues, most had no diagnosed disorders but rather a complete lack of social skills. ‘‘A lot of the kids I act for have no friends, or if they do have friendships they don’t last too long. Their best friend is their gadget, so if you take it off them it’s like taking their right arm off them.’’

While not every case is the same, those at the front line of the problem say addiction to the internet, social media and gaming has been a recurring ‘‘trigger point’’ over the past three years.

Police have also observed a significant shift in cases coming before the Youth Court – away from petty thefts and robberies and towards serious cases of assault initiated by children and teenagers within the family home.

Nelson Police youth aid officer Sergeant Charlie Parfitt said there had been a noticeable increase in family harm offending in Nelson Bays over the past three years. ‘‘We’re not talking about 15-yearolds slamming doors and swearing at mum and dad, we’re talking about threatening to kill, use of weapons, and serious assaults.’’

Parfitt said the picture of youth offending had changed significantly even from five years ago, with about 70 per cent of serious offences now happening within the home. ‘‘The vast majority of offending we were dealing with [five years ago] was out in the community, young people doing dumb stuff – thefts, burglaries, that sort of thing. Now we’re seeing a completely different shift.’’

He said while there had been a decrease in youth offending overall, similar to national and international trends, the proportion of serious offending had increased.

Disputes over devices were often the trigger point for violence. ‘‘Generally the scenario will be a parent becoming frustrated that a young person is gaming or doing whatever on the internet, sometimes for days at a time.

‘‘When the parent tries to intervene to put a stop to that – you have this completely over the top response, a violent response.

‘‘I believe what we’re dealing with is an addiction issue. When we think about addiction we tend to think about drugs and alcohol, but there’s all these addiction issues around the internet, social media, and gaming for young people as well.’’

Parfitt said it was likely there were many more cases going unreported, as police were generally only getting involved when situations got out of control. Frequently the families they were dealing with had never come to police attention before, with parents being reluctant to say there was a problem and ask for help.

‘‘Once we scratch the surface, we’re finding there’s a history that’s been unreported – a build up of family harm in that family until it reaches a crisis point and someone gets hurt.’’

Sandston said most of the kids he had represented had predominantly been middle-class and Pakeha, who had otherwise not been in trouble with the law before.

However, Parfitt said for police there wasn’t a neat socioeconomic or demographic profile – while some regions were observing similar trends, others were not.

‘‘Some areas I would have thought similar to Nelson in terms of socioeconomic factors are saying they’re not seeing these trends, but in other areas like Counties-Manukau, they are.’’

Parfitt said it was important for parents to recognise what was going on before it got out of control, and that police could offer help earlier on in the process before it got to the point that someone got hurt.

‘‘It’s not about punishing the kid, it’s about addressing the causes of their offending. If we know about it earlier, we can get the right agencies involved and that’s going to hopefully prevent those serious offences from happening.

‘‘I think one of the most effective ways of addressing that type of offending is demonstrating to the family that this is family harm – and it is going to be treated seriously.’’

Sandston said once the issues reached the Youth Court, they could still often be resolved. ‘‘For most kids it’s a big wake-up call, generally you don’t get repeat offenders – the system is working in that sense.’’

‘‘Kids are reacting badly to boundary settings by parents around gadgets.’’ John Sandston