Victimisation rates for violent offences have stayed mostly steady according to new official data, released two days after the government said violent crime had dropped.
Ministry of Justice data out on Thursday counted violence differently than the police and justice ministers did on Tuesday, when ministers Mark Mitchell and Paul Goldsmith said violent crime had dropped by 2% in 2024, for the first time since 2018.
"It is encouraging to see a reversal of this rise," Mitchell said.
However, the ministry said that its latest crime and victims survey, out on Thursday, found: "Victimisation rates for violent offences (physical and sexual assault, and robbery) have mostly remained steady compared to previous years."
RNZ analysed the same categories of crime relied upon by the ministers in their definition of 'violent crime' and the data does show an overall drop for 2024.
However, the monthly data still shows a general upward trend, with victimisations for this group of crimes at their highest-ever level in December 2024, and close to an all-time high when corrected for population.
The data trends also depend on how 'violent crime' is defined and what time periods are compared.
The ministers included common assault in their definition of violent crime - this can include "a simple push", according to police policy. The Crimes Act also included a threat to apply force in the definition of common assault.
The ministers also included blackmail and extortion.
RNZ analysed the nine categories of violent crime ('subdivisions' within police data) included in the ministers' definition. This revealed most of the overall increase since 2018 was due to an increase in serious assaults (whether or not the victim was injured).
The trends for other categories were flatter.
The ministers based their measure for violent crime off a post on social media site X, according to a footnote to their media release on Tuesday.
This was a post by @Charteddaily, an account which sometimes posted political commentary.
This was because "violent crime" was not a category of data that police used, the ministers said. Mitchell told RNZ they checked it out.
"Once the post was seen, my office verified it on the police data website and then confirmed with police.
"We are comfortable with the definition used for violent crime and even more comfortable that that data shows a 51% increase from 2018 to 2023 and a 2% decrease from 2023 to 2024," he said in a statement on Thursday.
Asked about the user @Charteddaily, he added: "Neither minister knows, or has had any interaction with the user, nor is there any need to verify their identity given that police's data speaks for itself.
"The critical point is that violent crime has dropped for the first time in six years and that is worthy of celebration."
However, it is how the Ministry of Justice survey measures violent offences - and not Charteddaily's categories - that is used to track how the government is doing against its violent crime target. The target is 20,000 fewer people being the victims of assaults, robberies and sexual assaults by 2029.
The survey, based on interviews with 7000 people, found between 2023 and 2024 the number of adults experiencing violence was the same, at 4%. It was actually slightly higher by number in 2024 at 191,000, than in 2023 at 185,000.
Goldsmith on Tuesday near the bottom of the media statement cited the ministry survey as evidence that "shows how effective our work to restore law and order has been".
He compared how many victims there were in the 12 months to October 2024 - 191,000 - with the 12 months to June 2024 - 215,000. This illustrated that it depended what period was used. The survey out on Thursday used the most dependable, October-to-October annual figures, which showed the slight rise to 191,000 victims since October 2023.
Goldsmith noted the data would "remain volatile before a longer-term trend emerges", adding, "These results are extremely promising."
In the survey, if all types of crime were counted - not just violence - then a third of adult New Zealanders were a victim of at least one crime in 2024.
The prevalence of sexual assault stayed steady, but many more were being reported to police - up a third since 2018.
Burglaries continued to drop, with 26 incidents per 100 households in 2024 compared to 33 in 2018 when the victimisation survey began.
Interpersonal violence, fraud and cybercrime, and threats and damages, had remained at about 30 incidents per 100 adults for every year of the survey - in 2024, it was 32 .
