*Includes victimisations for murder, manslaughter or infanticide recorded in the New Zealand Police system. Excludes suspicious deaths and driving causing death offences.

While media reports of violent crime focus on homicides and other serious offences, these were only 0.4% of all reported violent crime in 2020. Most (86%) of the violent crimes reported were assaults.

Note: In 2014 New Zealand Police replaced the statistical series on ‘recorded offences’ and ‘recorded apprehensions’ with series based on ‘crime victimisations’ and ‘proceedings against offenders’. The two sets of statistics are not comparable. A report describing the change in crime statistics is available on the New Zealand Police website.