KEY INSIGHTS TABLE

VICTIMISATIONS BY CRIME TYPE OVER THIS PERIOD

• Theft and Related Offences = 11,139
• Acts Intended to Cause Injury (Assault) = 6,492
• Sexual Assault and Related Offences = 570
• Robbery, Extortion and Related Offences = 509
• Abduction, Harassment and Other Related Offences Against a Person = 56
• TOTAL = 18,766

KEY QUESTION

How do we reduce the amount of violent crime in New Zealand, especially for demographic groups overrepresented in these victimisation statistics like Māori and Indian New Zealanders?

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Ethnicity notes:

• ‘Ethnicity not stated’ , ‘Sex not specified’, and ‘Sex not stated’ victimisations have NOT been proportionally reallocated across the demographic groups in the graph. If it was, the per capita rates for each demographic group would be higher. For relativity and comparison, we felt it was best to stick with the ethnicities and sexes that were clearly labeled/known rather than evenly redistribute them. We have asked the NZ Police for comment on this point.
• The NZ Police only record a single ethnicity, whereas Stats NZ allows individuals to be counted multiple times across different ethnicities, which is why there is a 115% population total and why we have provided an adjusted population column.
• The NZ Police split ‘Asian’ and ‘Indian’ ethnicities out. Stats NZ combines ‘Indian’ within the ‘Asian’ count, but also provides sub-category counts.
• The NZ Police split ‘European’ and ‘Other’ out. Stats NZ combines ‘European’ and ‘Other’ in their ethnicity population projections and call this ‘European and Other (including New Zealander)’. Their explanation is:
  “The ‘other’ group is very small and made up primarily of people who identify as ‘New Zealander‘. In 2006, there was heightened media presentation of the option to report as a ‘New Zealander’ which resulted in a significant increase in these responses. We observed in the data the number of people who identified as European decreased, and the size of the other category increased. To maintain consistency these were grouped together. In addition, the ‘other’ group is too small to project alone and thus needs to be grouped for projections purposes.
  For the estimates, this data can be split out for 2018. However, this is classified as a customised data request so there will be a charge. For the projections, given the way they are produced, splitting the data is not feasible.”
• The NZ Police puts ‘MELAA’ (Middle Eastern/Latin American/African) into ‘Other’. Stats NZ splits them out into their own ethnic category.
• Due to the two points above, we have had to combine ‘European’, ‘MELAA’, and ‘Other’ into ‘Euro/Other’.
• NZ Police use the ethnicity labels ‘Maori’, ‘Pacific Island’, ‘European’, and ‘Other’ in their reporting. Stats NZ use ‘Māori’, ‘Pacific’, and ‘European or Other (including New Zealander)’. We have used ‘Māori’, ‘Pasifika’, ‘Euro/Other’.
• See https://datainfoplus.stats.govt.nz/item/nz.govt.stats/d0dec6b1-d64d-4359-aa97-cd6ff746ad99/1 for more information on how Stats NZ create their National Ethnic Population Projections.

Other notes:

• All available information has been published.
• Victimisations data is one month behind offending data. We have asked why, but suspect this is due to the 30-day Outcome of Investigation delay.
• We selected 3 months of proceedings (one quarter of the year) as we felt that was the fairest measure of current crime rates. One quarter of a year is also commonly used for other key national metrics. However, this actually only spat out 2 months of data for December 2022 and January 2023. As such, we’ve used that data only for consistency against the 2 months of offending data from last week’s fact.
• February victimisations data was not available when we did this research on April 11th.
• We used September and December 2022 male and female population estimates to project March and June 2023 male and female population estimates. We then used that June 2023 figure to be consistent with the June 2023 ethnicity population projections. We have not adjusted these population figures back to the December-January victimisations period as a) we felt it was best to have a consistent June 2023 population count for both ethnicity and sex and b) the per capita figures will not change significantly and c) it is the relativity between demographic groups that is the key insight.
• Victimisations data is limited to the following 5 ANZSOC Divisions:
  • Acts Intended to Cause Injury (Assault)
  • Sexual Assault and Related Offences
  • Abduction, Harassment and Other Related Offences Against a Person
  • Robbery, Extortion and Related Offences
  • Theft and Related Offences
• The NZ Police makes the “Note: Burglary vicitimisations are classified to property rather than the resident and have been excluded from the data”. We have asked for more clarification.
• The following ANZSOC Divisions are also not included in the vicitimisation data:
  • Homicide and Related Offences
  • Dangerous or Negligent Acts Endangering Persons
  • Fraud, Deception and Related Offences
  • Miscellaneous Offences
  • Offences Against Justice Procedures, Govt Sec and Gov Ops
  • Property Damange and Environmental Pollution
  • Public Order Offences
  • Traffic and Vehicle Regulatory Offences
  • Prohibited and Regulated Weapons and Explosive Devices [unlikely to have victims]
• Crime definitions can be found via: https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/classifications/australian-and-new-zealand-standard-offence-classification-anzsoc/latest-release.
• There is also a useful aggravated robbery definition on https://www.police.govt.nz/advice-services/businesses-and-organisations/retail-crime-prevention-hub/victims-ram-raids-aggravated-robbery.
• Not all crime is reported.
• We chose black to represent the ethnicity bars in the graph as this is New Zealand’s national colour. We choose blue and red for the male and female bars in the graph as these are commonly used to represent each sex so help quick audience interpretation.
• All numbers are provisional and subject to revision.

Thank you to the Factors who helped pull this together.

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SOURCES:

• Victimisations (demographics) = https://www.police.govt.nz/about-us/publications-statistics/data-and-statistics/policedatanz/victimisations-demographics (use the Demographics tab)

Data published by New Zealand Police
(c) Crown Copyright
Licensed for use under the creative commons attribution licence (BY) 4.0

• Ethnicity population estimates = https://www.stats.govt.nz/information-releases/national-ethnic-population-projections-2018base2043-update/
• Sex population estimates = https://infoshare.stats.govt.nz/ (go to Population > Population Estimates – DPE > Estimated Resident Population by Age and Sex (1991+) (Annual-Dec))

This work is based on/includes Stats NZ’s data which are licensed by Stats NZ for reuse under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licence.

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