Crime in New Zealand

Crime In New Zealand

Crime in New Zealand is generally measured by the number of offences being reported to police per 100,000 people. However many crimes go unreported, especially sexual crimes, and do not appear in official statistics. Victimization surveys collect information about people’s perceptions of crime and the criminal justice system and tend to give much higher figures than reported crime.

Crime rates in New Zealand rose for much of the C20th but began to decline during the 1990s (see graph). Despite the drop, crime often dominates much of the political debate in New Zealand and seems to be of huge interest to the general public. The media tend to sensationalise violent crime even though a relatively small proportion of criminal offending involves murder or serious violence – in most years around 10%. This leads to misperceptions that crime is increasing and generates public apprehension and fear of being a victim of crime (as opposed to the actual probability of being a victim - see fear of crime).