Highly Victimised People - Report

The Ministry of Justice’s Research and Evaluation Team has published a specialist report called “Highly Victimised People”.  

This report comes from New Zealand’s largest survey of crime - the New Zealand Crime and Victims Survey 2018 (NZCVS).  Last year, more than 8,000 people over the age of 15 were interviewed face-to-face and asked about any incidents of crime they had experienced in the previous 12 months.

The NZCVS provides information on the following: 

  • What is the extent and nature of crime and victimisation in New Zealand?
  • What is the extent and nature of crime that goes reported or unreported to the Police?
  • Who experiences crime?
  • How is crime distributed among victims?

The key findings of the report are:

  • Four per cent of the New Zealand adult population (12% of victims) experience almost half (47%) of all crime incidents.
  • Young people, Māori and people who have never been in a legally recognised relationship are all overrepresented in the highly victimised population.
  • There are no significant differences found in geographic location, area deprivation or household composition between highly victimised people and other victims.
  • Compared with other victims, highly victimised people experience a significantly lower proportion of household offences (23% vs. 41%) but a significantly higher proportion of interpersonal violence.
  • The highly victimised four per cent experience over two-thirds (67%) of all interpersonal violence.
  • The majority of interpersonal violence incidents experienced by all victims are perpetrated by community and not family members (74% vs. 27%1).
  • There was a non-significant trend for more interpersonal violent incidents to be perpetrated by community members who were strangers compared with known community members (47% vs. 31% for the other victims' group).
  • Highly victimised people are significantly overrepresented in categories of high psychological distress, low life satisfaction and low feelings of safety when compared with other victims.
  • Highly victimised people are less likely to earn high personal incomes and are more likely to be under financial stress when compared to other victims.
  • There is no evidence in this report that highly victimised people are less likely to view incidents as crimes when compared to other victims.

For more information, view the report.

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