10.5 Multiple ethnicity

Corrections asks for ethnicity information at each reception and offenders are associated with all their most recent self-identified ethnicities. This information is recorded in Corrections' database and grouped according to a Statistics New Zealand ethnicity mapping. This means that it is possible for an individual to be counted in multiple ethnic groups at one time. Note that this differs from the "preferred ethnicity" approach described above where individuals are only associated with a single ethnic group.

The "multiple ethnicity" approach used here closely follows the Statistical Standard for Ethnicity 2005, but does not meet it. It differs from the standard in that it has not collected the ethnicity data in the newly prescribed way. Instead, the ethnicity data results from an amalgam of historical methods relating to the time the data was collected, the agency doing the collecting and the standard of the day.