Kiwification

photo credit: Midnight-digital

The NZ Herald published a story yesterday analyzing crime trends over the past 10 years. These trends are freshly drawn from the police’s latest crime data published on 1 April 2008 by Statistics New Zealand.

What initially grabbed my attention was the trends themselves: a decrease in overall (stranger-danger) crime, but an increase in violent family violence, dishonesty, abuse, bullying, and destruction of property.

(These facts lend themselves to another post I hope to write soon, reflecting on my experience of the general morality of New Zealand)

Having experience the horrific crime rate of South Africa, where government limits access to, or “massages“, valid statistics, I went to Statistics New Zealand’s crime tables to see for myself.

Expecting a page or two of tables and summaries, I was amazed to discover that Statistics New Zealand let you build and report on your own trends! Their web interface gives you access to all their recorded data, which you can filter and graph by geographical region (Auckland, Bay of Plenty..), scene (business, residential), type of crime (dishonesty, theft), etc.

For example, I was able to generate the following report on the amount of cannabis abuse in factories or warehouses over the past two years. (Happily, less incidents reported and more resolved, comparatively)

Why should I care about New Zealand’s crime statistics?

Many migrants (including myself) come to New Zealand for a better quality of life, the “lifestyle” factor. If you’re considering where to move to in New Zealand, or if you’re just considering should-I-come-or-not, having accurate and up-to-date crime statistics will help you to make a calculated, informed decision. Crime statistics also help you to “guesstimate” what the country’s issues will be in 10 or 20 years. (You may not want to settle with your toddlers in the area with the highest incidence of child molestation, for example)

How are crime statistics recorded in New Zealand?

According to Statistics New Zealand’s overview of recording and counting crime:

• All reports of incidents, whether from victims, witnesses, third parties or discovered by police, and whether crime-related or not, will result in the registration of an incident report by police.
• The incident is considered a crime if:
  1. the circumstances as reported amount to a crime defined by law and
  2. there is no credible evidence to the contrary
• or if ..
  1. an incident was not reported as an offence, but upon investigation police determine that an offence is likely to have been committed.

i.e., The statistics present an overview of crimes committed as defined by law, and crimes resolved, when an offender is identified and dealt with (eg prosecuted, warned, cautioned, diverted, etc).

But not all crimes are reported in New Zealand…

No, as is probably the case everywhere. The incidents which are most accurately reported would be those involving insurance and medical claims.

The following factors are believed to influence whether or not a crime will be reported:

• the type of crime
• age, sex, race and ethnicity of the victim
• relationship between the victim and offender
• perceived seriousness of the crime, and
• a perception of how police would deal with the matter.

Take care when comparing New Zealand’s crime statistics to other countries

Statistics New Zealand offer the following warning when comparing crime statistics in other countries:

Offence definitions and categorisations vary widely between police jurisdictions internationally. For example, in New Zealand ‘homicide’ includes murder, attempted murder, manslaughter, infanticide, abortion, and aiding suicide/pact. Within this, ‘murder’ includes conspiracy to murder, and incite/counsel/attempt to procure murder. This variation, plus several other limitations associated with international comparisons, means that any results must be interpreted with extreme caution.