Crime stats show number of crime victims dropping in Auckland, rising in Eastern North Island

Robbery, burglary and sexual assault crimes have risen in recent years, while thefts have gone down, latest crime statistics show.

And while the number of crime victims has risen most sharply in the eastern and central North Island, it has dropped by 19 per cent in Auckland City.

Research released this week from the Parliamentary Library collated crime data from 1994 to 2017, which included different data sets due to police changing the way crime was recorded.

From 2015 to 2017 - when police started counting victims of crimes and offenders, rather than every act of crime - theft accounted for more than half of all victimisations, burglary more than a quarter, and almost one in five were due to acts intended to cause injury.

Victimisations in the Eastern police district, which includes the Hawke's Bay and Tairawhiti areas, rose by 22 per cent over the 2015 to 2017 period, while in Central they rose by 18.8 per cent, and by 12.5 per cent in Waikato.

The rate has decreased by 19.1 per cent in Auckland City, and 6.5 per cent in Canterbury and Waitemata over the same time period.

Eastern also had the most victims of crime per capita in 2016 and 2017 - 875 victimisations per 10,000 population.

This was 1.6 times higher than the national average, and 2.6 times higher than the Southern district, which had the lowest victimisation rate (336).

Other districts that had victimisation rates lower than the national average in 2017 were Wellington, Canterbury, Tasman and Waitemata.

Police used recorded offences from 1994 to 2014, which are not comparable with victimisation rates because they measure each offence, regardless of how many victims there are.

The data showed that the crime rate - number of recorded offences per 10,000 people - had plummeted since 1990.

It had reduced by 9.1 per cent in the decade to 2000, 11.5 per cent in the decade to 2010, and by 20.7 per cent from 2010 to 2014.

From 1994 to 2014, the crime rate decreased by 75 per cent for fraud, 57 per cent for murder, 46 per cent for drug offences and 45 per cent for theft.

But it rose by 34.9 per cent for abduction and harassment, 23.7 per cent for sexual assaults, and 6.4 per cent for acts intended to cause injury.

The Eastern police district had the highest crime rate in 2014, whereas Waitemata had the lowest.