1 Introduction

The New Zealand Offender Volumes Report provides a unique offender centric perspective on offending in New Zealand.

This report presents information about volume patterns of New Zealand offenders managed by the Department of Corrections. The methodology takes care not to count distinct individuals multiple times despite many being managed under multiple concurrent categories.

Over the most recent reporting year, there were typically 44,000 distinct individuals under Corrections’ management, on any one day. The degree of churn is such that around 130,000 transitions per year, between significantly different forms of management, were required to handle the directives and orders issued to the Department.

The report provides a perspective on the trends in the use of different Corrections’ management categories, and the associated population demographics. Impacts of changing Justice Policies can be observed in these trends.

The report helps the Department to understand, plan and develop robust policies for managing offenders.