Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith announcing the Government is moving forward with coalition promises for longer sentences. Video / Mark Mitchell
Violent crime is dropping dramatically, according to the latest quarterly report from the NZ Crime and Victims Survey.
The Government claimed the credit, even though many of its key law and order policies are yet to be implemented. Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith has also pointed to the impact of the Government’s law and order message, or “vibe”.
Ministry of Justice advice suggests the current trend is a return to what happened between 2018 and 2022.
The dramatic drop in violent crime over the past year might be a return to crime trends that took place in the first five years of the previous Labour-led Government, according to advice from the Justice Ministry obtained by the Herald.
This contrasts with the two narratives from PrimeMinister Christopher Luxon: that his Government should be credited with the decrease in violent crime victims, and that violent offending rose under Labour as the prison population fell.
To support the latter, he has cited police victimisations for “acts intended to cause injury”, which grew each year until 2024.
But the Government uses the NZ Crime and Victims Survey (NZCVS) results for its target for lowering violent crime, as this accounts for the vast majority of crime that is unreported.
According to the latest NZCVS update, the number of annual victims in the year to February was 157,000 - a 15% decrease from October 2023, and a 27% decrease from the peak in June 2024. The result bests the Government’s violent crime reduction goal four years ahead of schedule.
How much this can be attributed to the Government is a point of contention.
The annual survey started as Labour took office in 2017, and shows a decreasing trend in the number of victims of violent crime from 2018 to 2022. The prison population fell over this period, specifically from March 2018 until the start of 2022.
“The February 2025 [NZCVS] estimate may indicate a return to a trend seen from 2018-2022,” said Justice Ministry advice to ministers, released to the Herald under the Official Information Act.
The trend in violent crime data suggests that there was a 'transitory' increase from 2022 to 2024. Source: Justice Ministry
“If you fit a linear trend to the number of victims of violent crime between 2018-2022 and then project that line forward to 2029, the February 2025 estimate falls very close to that line.
“This is consistent with [the] possibility there was a transitory increase in violent crime between 2022-2024 and violent crime rates are now returning to the pre-2022.”
More data would be needed to confirm this, the advice said.
That the drop in the number of victims might be a return to 2018-2022 trends was not mentioned.
Other advice from the Justice Ministry was more politically convenient: the tougher law and order message under this Government might also be contributing. Goldsmith has previously referred to this as changing the “vibe” from the previous Government.
Officials also noted more police on the beat, which might have helped the number of violent crime victims fall in Auckland and Christchurch. But the number of victims rose in Wellington, where police presence on the street had also increased.
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon, Police Minister Mark Mitchell (left) and Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith (right). Photo / Dean Purcell
Which offences buck the trend?
Violent crime is defined in the NZCVS survey as sexual assault, physical assault, or robbery. The survey asks about crime experienced in the previous 12 months, so the results are annual estimates.
The annual number of victims in the February 2025 update was 157,000, a drop of 15% from October 2023 when the figure was 185,000 victims.
The Government’s target, for 2029, is 165,000 annual victims of violent crime, so it is unsurprising for the Prime Minister to take pride in hitting the target four years ahead of schedule.
The proportion of adults who experienced violent offending in the year to February 2025 fell to 3.6%, the lowest since the survey began.
The number of victims of non-sexual assault or robbery fell by 22.4% from the October 2023 baseline, while the number of victims of sexual assault has been more stable. There were only 1000 fewer such victims (a 1% drop) in the February 2025 data compared with the baseline.
Officials said this is perhaps reflected in the smaller decrease since October 2023 in the number of female victims (9000 fewer) compared to male victims (17,000 fewer), given how sexual assault victims tend to be women.
The number of Māori adult victims fell by 37% between June 2024 and February 2025, higher than the 29% drop in the number of European victims.
“This [the February data] is the first time the number of Māori victims is below the October 2023 baseline,” an April briefing from the Justice Ministry said.
Victim numbers in other ethnicities remained higher than the baseline, “likely due to increased numbers of Pacific People victims”; there were 4000 more such victims compared to October 2023.
The number of victims of drug-related violent offences, and of family violence, also bucked the trend; there were 3000 more victims than the baseline for the former, while for the latter there were 2000 more victims compared to October 2023.
A decline in police responsiveness to family violence “coincides with increased police focus on enforcing new gang laws”, said a document in March quoting Te Pūkotahitanga, an advisory group to the Minister for the Prevention of Family and Sexual Violence Karen Chhour.
Regionally, there’s been a 19% drop in the number of victims of violent crime in Auckland and Christchurch since National took office.
“Additional Police presence in Auckland and Christchurch CBDs is likely to have contributed to the decrease in victims in each place,” an April briefing to Goldsmith said.
“However, it should be noted that Wellington, which has also seen increased Police presence, increased by 4000 more victims compared to October 2023.”
The number of victims of family violence has remained stubbornly high as violent crime is dropping. Photo / 123RF
The Government’s ‘soft-signalling’ on law and order
Thirteen days after the ministry’s advice on the February NZCVS data, Luxon, Goldsmith and Mitchell held a press conference highlighting the drop in violent crime and praising the Government’s law and order work (Mitchell also acknowledged the wider work of communities in general).
Officials said the impact of key government policies in the law and order space was not yet known.
As well as pointing to the 2018-2022 trend in violent offending, they said “the Government’s well-reported tougher stance on law and order may have provided enough soft signalling within the justice system to deter some offenders”.
Officials said 500 more frontline police - likely to be achieved next year - strengthening multi-agency responses to family violence, and “addressing alcohol and drug-related harm, particularly methamphetamine” would also help.
“Further work needs to be done to determine how the increase in the number of victims of drug-related violent offences relates to the recent increases in methamphetamine wastewater detection,” officials said.
Luxon has asked Goldsmith and Mitchell to look at what more can be done to combat the problem of methamphetamine.
Inside Luxon’s numbers
Officials also noted the dramatic drop in the NZCVS data is not reflected in the number of victims reporting violent offending to police.
The latter fell by only 1% for the year to January 2025.
“Consequently, unique victimisation data remains flat overall,” the April briefing said.
Preliminary police analysis noted decreases in reported victimisations in areas with a heavy gang presence - Eastern, Bay of Plenty, and Waikato - as well as fewer family harm-related callouts and assaults, the briefing said.
Luxon and his ministers have repeatedly cited police victimisation data for “acts intended to cause injury” (covering assault and serious assault) to support claims of rising violent crime under Labour, as the prison population fell.
The number of such victimisations rose annually from 2018 to 2024.
This rising trend did not correlate with the number of charges police laid, which fluctuated in that period.
Court data also did not mirror the police victimisation data. The number of convictions and the number of people convicted for “acts intended to cause injury” fell from 2018 to 2021, and has since been rising.
This correlates with the pattern in total prisoner numbers, which started falling in 2018 but has been rising since early 2022.
The NZCVS trend in the number of victims of violent offending also appears to correlate with the trend in the prison population - up until mid-2024.
There were 184,000 such victims in the year to October 2019, falling to 162,000 victims in the year to October 2022, and then rising to 215,000 victims in the year to June 2024.
The number of victims has been falling since then while the prison population kept rising, and is expected to keep rising as the Government’s law and order policies actually start to bite; the sentencing changes, which come into effect in June, are expected to increase the prison population by 1350 over 10 years.
Budget 2025 allocated $400 million in new spending to cover the costs of housing 10,860 prisoners - the highest ever - by June next year.
Derek Cheng is a senior journalist who started at the Herald in 2004. He has worked several stints in the press gallery team and is a former deputy political editor.
