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New Zealand is perceived correctly as a place with high levels of violent crime, Sensible Sentencing Trust spokesman Garth McVicar said after New Zealand scored highly an international crime survey.
New Zealand scored highest for thefts from cars, second highest for burglary, fifth highest for assaults, 10th highest for robbery and 11th highest for theft of personal property and for sexual assaults against women in The International Crime Victims Survey. The survey compared 30 countries in 2004 and 2005.
New Zealand also scored highly for supporting victims and had the highest perception of police performance.
Mr McVicar said he had not examined the survey in detail but he was picking up that New Zealand was perceived as a place with high levels of violent crime when he travelled internationally.
The murder of Karen Aim in Taupo this year had highlighted the issue.
"New Zealand is gradually, sadly, becoming the attention of focus in a lot of these issue," he said.
He had done a lot of interviews with foreign media during the investigation of Ms Aim's murder.
"We are getting a lot more knife attacks, a lot more baseball bat attacks," he said.
National's Justice spokesman Simon Power said New Zealand compared poorly with other countries.
On average an estimated 16 per cent of the population of 30 nations in the survey have been a victim of at least one of 10 common crimes in the survey.
The highest victimisation rates were in Ireland, England and Wales, New Zealand and Iceland.
The lowest overall victimisation rates were found in Spain, Japan, Hungary and Portugal.
Theft of cars was highest in countries with high car ownership levels and low alternative means of transport. New Zealand was among them.
On average, 1.8 per cent of households in the 30 countries saw their houses burgled in the 12-month period.
This type of crime was most common in England, Wales, New Zealand, Mexico and Denmark.
Johannesburg had victimisation rates for assaults and threats of more than 10 per cent.
New Zealand was at 4 per cent but rates below 1 per cent were found in Portugal, Italy and Japan.
The proportion of victims of serious crimes with support needs who were actually contacted by Victim Support was the highest in New Zealand, at 47 per cent.
Public satisfaction with police in New Zealand was the highest in the survey.
"Being the third-worst for the prevalence of all the most common crime is bad enough, but being the fifth worst for assaults and threats and 11th for sexual assaults on women is very concerning," Mr Power said.
"Labour has failed to deal to crimes against people, with these figures showing that crime is now much nastier."
Mr Power said it was great to see New Zealand ranked among the highest for public satisfaction with the police, reporting rates of victims and satisfaction of victims with how police dealt with reported crime.
"But this is all after the crime has been committed. After nine years of Labour are Kiwis any safer? These figures show we are not."
- NZPA
