After mounting political and public pressure, police changed their approach to dealing with burglaries in August.
The crimes were recatagorised to a higher priority, and a target of officers attending all household burglaries within 24-hours of being reported was introduced.
Police's Prevention Assistant Commissioner Bill Searle said: "Burglary is a serious crime and it's a priority for police, however police acknowledge that there will be times when other serious incidents - such as homicides and serious violence - have to take investigative priority."
Police Minister Judith Collins said it was too early to tell if the new policies were impacting burglary rates but an initial review was due soon.
"Unfortunately, as previously mentioned, burglaries are often a difficult crime to resolve and police are only able to work with the information and evidence they have available to them."
A new recording system for burglaries was introduced on July 1, 2014 - meaning the total number of the crimes logged since then is 133,840.
In March, the Herald's Hitting Home series revealed that 164 burglaries went unsolved each day in the year to December 31, 2015 - a resolution rate of just 9.3 per cent.
Information supplied to the Herald under the Official Information Act showed after the series ran, police were "tasked to prioritise response to burglary".
The numbers
When broken down further, the data showed that the police districts with the lowest rates were Northland and Auckland City with 6.9 per cent and 7.3 per cent, respectively.
The Southern police district was the best performing with 13.4 per cent, followed by the Eastern region at 12.8 per cent.
Canterbury had a resolution rate of 7.7 per cent; Tasman of 8.3 per cent; Wellington 7.8 per cent; the Central region of 9.5 per cent; Bay of Plenty 9.6 per cent; Waikato 9.1 per cent; Counties Manukau 8.7 per cent; Waitemata 8.5 per cent and Northland 6.9 per cent.
Data provided to the Herald was broken down to police station level, which revealed more than 30 of the country's 300-plus stations solved none of the crimes.
Burglaries in New Zealand, January 1 to June 30, 2016
• 36,133 burglaries reported
• Only 3216 solved - a resolution rate of just 8.9 per cent
• That is more than 180 per day unsolved
• More than 30 of the country's 300-plus stations solved none of the crime
• In the whole of 2015, 164 of the crimes went unsolved each day
• There have been 133,840 burglaries reported to police in the two years since a new recording system was introduced on July 1, 2014.
Source: NZ Police
