Trends in the Offender Population 2014/15

The Trends in the Offender Population report was previously known as the Offender Volumes Report.

This report presents information about trends in the offender population managed by the Department between1984 - 2015, to assist with our goal of reduce re-offending.

Introduction

This report presents key facts about offenders both on remand or sentenced to prison, and offenders serving community sentences and orders.

The historical trend data is reported from 1984 for offenders serving prison and community sentences, and 1999 for offenders on remand (remand data prior to 1999 is affected by quality issues).

The figure below shows that, on 30 June 2015, there were 37,473 individuals under Corrections’ management. Collectively, these individuals were serving 43,132 sentences and orders.

The data provided in this report is aggregated to an offender/ sentence/ start date level. That means that when an offender starts two sentences of the same type on the same day, they will only be counted as one. However, when an offender starts two sentences of different types on the same day, or two sentences on different days they will be counted as two.

Some of the statistic contained in this report can be obtained electronically by going to the Statistics New Zealand website (http://nzdotstat.stats.govt.nz/wbos/index.aspx) and clicking on the link to "Corrections".

The NZ.Stat site allows researchers and other users to view and download the information from the Corrections datasets. Users can select variables and customise table layouts, then download tables in Excel or CSV format.

In addition, Corrections puts some unit record data into the Statistics New Zealand Integrated Data Infrastructure. This allows Corrections and other researchers to combine offender information with data from a range of organisations (such as health and education data) to provide the insights government needs to improve social and economic outcomes for New Zealanders. With all identifying information removed, integrated data gives a safe view across government so agencies can deliver better services to the public and ensure investment is made where it’s needed most. Integrated data is particularly useful to help address complex social issues such as crime and vulnerable children.

Additional information about the data that Corrections puts into the IDI can be found here: http://www.stats.govt.nz/browse_for_stats/snapshots-of-nz/integrated-data-infrastructure/idi-data-dictionaries/sentencing-remand.aspx