Story summary
Violent crime includes murder and manslaughter, robbery, assault, sexual assault and domestic violence. While violent crime gets a lot of media and public attention, it was only 18% of recorded offences in 2014. However, the annual number of violent crimes has increased from 1,341 in 1950 to 61,967 in 2014. In 2014 the New Zealand Police replaced its crime statistics recording methods, so from 2015 onwards reported statistics are not comparable with those reported previously. The new statistics report criminal victimisations rather than crimes reported, as was previously the case.
Punishment
Prison sentences for violent crimes are harsher than for other crimes, and have increased since the mid-1980s. The public often wants longer sentences and longer non-parole periods (the period during which an offender cannot apply to be released from prison). Since a law change in 2002 made all sentences of over two years parole-eligible, the proportion of sentences served before parole is granted has increased. Currently prisoners serve an average of 78% of their sentences before being granted parole. The chances of an offender being recalled to prison for breaching parole conditions has increased since 2002. In 2017 about 350 parolees were permanently recalled to prison.
Murder and manslaughter
Murder is when a person kills someone deliberately, or by acting recklessly, knowing that death is likely. Manslaughter is an accidental killing resulting from an unlawful act or failure to act.
Most people convicted of murder are sentenced to life imprisonment. New Zealand imposed the death penalty for murder until 1941, and again from 1950 until 1961. Since 1840 a total of 85 people have been executed.
Controversial murder trials
Controversial trials have included:
- Minnie Dean (1895), who murdered at least two babies, and was the only woman to be executed in New Zealand
- Lionel Terry (1905), who shot a Chinese man, Joe Kum Yung, to protest against non-Europeans immigrating to New Zealand
- Pauline Parker and Juliet Hulme (1954), two teenage girls who killed Pauline’s mother Honorah
- Arthur Allan Thomas (1971), who was wrongly convicted of murdering his neighbours, Harvey and Jeanette Crewe, and spent nine years in prison before being pardoned
- Clayton Robert Weatherston (2008) who killed his former girlfriend, Sophie Elliott, in Dunedin and whose trial led to the NZ Government abolishing the partial defence of provocation in cases of murder.
Mass murders
Mass murders, where four or more people are killed at one time, have been rare in New Zealand. Cases include:
- Stan Graham (1941), a West Coast farmer who shot and killed seven people, four of them policemen
- David Gray (1990), who killed 13 people in the small settlement of Aramoana
- David Bain (1994), who was convicted of killing five members of his family, but was released from prison after a retrial in 2009 which found him not guilty.
- The Christchurch mosque terrorist attacks (2019), in which 51 worshippers were killed
Robbery and assault
Since the 1950s the rate of robberies has grown: from 27 in 1950 to 2,015 in 2014. During the 21st century has been a decline in big robberies, but robberies have become more violent. In 2016 there were over 3,200 aggravated robbery victimisations in New Zealand.
The number of assaults and their seriousness have also increased significantly over time. Changes in reporting methods make long-term comparisons difficult but assaults causing injury increased significantly during the 1980s and 1990s, peaking at 11,900 in 2009. By 2014 they had declined slightly to 9,900. In the year ending 2018 there were 11,248 assaults causing injury but this total is not comparable with previous figures.
Sexual assault
The number of rapes reported to the police has grown since the 1950s. In 1985, after public pressure, rape within marriage became a crime, and other types of sexual violence were taken more seriously.