Proceedings for criminal offences in New Zealand
By offence subdivision, 2016, number of proceedings against alleged offenders
| Offence subdivision | Number of proceedings |
|---|---|
| Murder | 54 |
| Attempted murder | 15 |
| Manslaughter and driving causing death | 115 |
| Assault | 27,528 |
| Other acts intended to cause injury | 22 |
| Sexual assault | 2,004 |
| Non-assaultive sexual offences | 192 |
| Dangerous or negligent operation of a vehicle | 14,362 |
| Other dangerous or negligent acts endangering persons | 436 |
| Abduction and kidnapping | 233 |
| Deprivation of liberty/false imprisonment | 1 |
| Harassment and threatening behaviour | 6,789 |
| Robbery | 1,534 |
| Blackmail and extortion | 80 |
| Unlawful entry with intent/burglary, break and enter | 7,288 |
| Motor vehicle theft and related offences | 4,784 |
| Theft (except motor vehicles) | 14,869 |
| Receive or handle proceeds of crime | 1,971 |
| Illegal use of property (except motor vehicles) | 209 |
| Obtain benefit by deception | 3,336 |
| Forgery and counterfeiting | 162 |
| Deceptive business/government practices | 18 |
| Other fraud and deception offences | 256 |
| Import or export illicit drugs | 120 |
| Deal or traffic in illicit drugs | 1,932 |
| Manufacture or cultivate illicit drugs | 1,707 |
| Possess and/or use illicit drugs | 4,731 |
| Other drug offences nec | 1,503 |
| Regulated weapons/explosives offences | 4,271 |
| Property damage | 7,817 |
| Environmental pollution | 56 |
| Public order offences nfd | 0 |
| Disorderly conduct | 16,245 |
| Regulated public order offences | 829 |
| Offensive conduct | 420 |
| Driving licence offences | 18,118 |
| Vehicle registration and roadworthiness offences | 8 |
| Regulatory driving offences | 15,546 |
| Pedestrian offences | 7 |
| Offences against justice procedures, security and govt operations nfd | 1 |
| Breach of custodial order offences | 409 |
| Breach of community-based orders | 9,203 |
| Breach of violence and non-violence orders | 3,086 |
| Offences against government operations | 44 |
| Offences against government security | 7 |
| Offences against justice procedures | 2,472 |
| Defamation, libel and privacy offences | 18 |
| Public health and safety offences | 253 |
| Commercial/industry/financial regulation | 15 |
| Other miscellaneous offences | 474 |
Definitions
Offence: refers to any act or omission by a person/organisation or persons/organisations for which a penalty could be imposed by the New Zealand legal system. Offences in this collection are defined by the 2011 edition of the Australian and New Zealand Standard Offence Classification (ANZSOC).
Offender: refers to a person or organisation Police apprehend because Police allege the person or organisation is involved in a criminal incident involving one or more offences.
Proceeding: refers to a legal action initiated against an alleged offender for an offence(s). Police proceedings represent a count for each separate occasion on which police initiate a legal action against an offender. Each proceeding is classified to a principal offence and principal method of proceeding. It does not represent a count of offences.
Proceeding population: the measure involving counting a person once on each day they are proceeded against by police in the reference period, whether by court or non-court action.
For more information
Limitations of the data
Caution should be observed when making inferences about long-term trends in crime, particularly for types of offences that are known to be significantly under-reported (e.g. Sexual offences and minor offences not warranting insurance claims or medical treatment).
Inclusions
- substantive offences (e.g. robbery, breach of protection order);
- attempted offences (e.g. attempted robbery).
- aid and abet offences;
- conspiracy offences.
The offenders include both people and organisations (for which age and sex are flagged ad 'Not applicable')
Exclusions
- offences that Police are able to deal with by issuing an infringement notice
- offences that come under the authority of agencies other than NZ Police, such as Customs, Worksafe New Zealand, Inland Revenue, ACC, Ministry for Primary Industries, etc.
Changes to data collection/processing
Increases in numbers of proceedings in June 2016 should be interpreted with caution. Some Police Districts (most notably Eastern, Counties Manukau and Waikato) undertook exercises to ensure records were up-to-date ahead of fiscal year end. Most formal actions against offenders were already up-to-date, so the updates primarily affected informal warning for adult offenders and other non-court actions for youth offenders.
Data provided by
Dataset name
Recorded Crime Offenders Statistics: Offender Demographics (Proceedings) - Age Sex Boundary December 2016
Webpage:
http://www.police.govt.nz/about-us/publications-and-statistics/statistics/policedatanz
How to find the data
At URL provided, select Offender Demographics (Proceedings) > Table 5.
Clear filter from Method of proceeding subdivision and Person/Organisation on the top-right corner. Use the time slider to select desired time period, then right click anywhere on the data and select 'Export Sex Age Boundary'.
Figure.NZ collated the whole time series by performing the steps above as many times as necessary. We created pivot tables in Excel to be able to process aggregated figures.
Import & extraction details
File as imported: Recorded Crime Offenders Statistics: Offender Demographics (Proceedings) - Age Sex Boundary December 2016
From the dataset Recorded Crime Offenders Statistics: Offender Demographics (Proceedings) - Age Sex Boundary December 2016, this data was extracted:
- Sheet: Pivot
- Range:
GG8:GP180 - Provided: 1,730 data points
This data forms the table Crime - Offenders (Proceedings) by sex by offence type (Annual) 2015–2016.
Dataset originally released on:
February 2017
About this dataset
This dataset presents descriptive information about offenders in New Zealand. It also gives an overview of trends in proceedings against offenders.
Method of collection/Data provider
The RCOS collection counts all alleged offenders recorded by NZ Police as prescribed in the NZ Police National Recording Standard (NRS), who have been proceeded against by police during the reference period.