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The Law and Order Referendum

and other related issues in New Zealand

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..........

A Collection of National and International Crime Data


Most of this data is from the Preliminary data set for the Sixth United Nations Survey on Crime Trends and the Operations of Criminal Justice Systems as of 15 March 2000. The countries are ranked in order of crime rate per 100,000 persons, averaged over the three years sampled.

Travel safety advisories from the US State Department, plus the British Foreign Commonwealth Office were used to "sanity check" the data as far as possible for some non-Western countries (some data was rejected on these grounds). Backpackers and other budget tourists are an excellent litmus test of how safe a country really is! Note however that in some countries crime is concentrated in a few localities easily avoided by tourists, and so even the travel advisories are not a 100% reliable guide.

A few gaps have been filled from the websites of the countries concerned (e.g. France, Japan, and New Zealand) and provided links to breakdowns across states within those nations where appropriate, e.g. Australia and the USA.

To get to these websites, and to State by State breakdowns, just click on the country names in the tables. There are links to some countries that did provide data to the UN Survey that merit special interest, e.g. Switzerland and Australia.

The figures for France are for 1996, 1997 and 1998, rather than 95, 96 and 97 as in all other cases. Note also that the link for France is to a report in French, however what is being described in the tables can be worked out easily enough with the help of an online dictionary, e.g. Cambriolage is burglary, vols is theft, viols is rape, autres atteintes volontaires contre les personnes is robbery and coups et blessures volontaires is serious assault resulting in injury.

The data for Japan does not seperate out burglary, car theft and all other theft, this all comes under larceny, so keep in mind that the larceny figures for Japan are actually for ALL theft.

Due to variations in the definitions of some crimes, these statistics will only be indicative, and only the larger differences between countries/states concerned will be significant. For instance, a difference of ten percent will not be meaningful, whereas a difference by a factor of ten will be (i.e. where one country has a crime rate ten times that of another). The grand total recorded crime figures in some cases do not include all crime for some countries, so these should be compared with caution. NZ is one of these.

The USA is a special case, in that it is in reality a collection of states, all with differing legal systems and approaches to crime, and differing economic and social factors. Therefore the overall USA figures do not really tell us a great deal about the USA as such, you need to go down to the State level figures to see the effects of such things as gun laws, Three Strikes, etc, both of which are applied patchily and at very different levels across the USA.

I have filtered out data from Third World and wartorn nations as it is likely to be too unreliable for the purposes of comparisons. Another useful set of statistics is this international survey on crime victims done in 1996. This graph of International Homicide rates for 1992/93 from World Health Organisation data also gives a useful indication at a glance, although the data is slightly dated now.

There is also lots of useful data here in this 1999 British Home Office International comparison of criminal justice statistics. Even more comprehensive data can be found in their 1998 version of this comparison. Both these are pdf documents which require Adobe Acrobat. This site gives comprehensive links to international and some National sites.



Homicide, completed and attempted.     Rates per 100,000
Country 1995 1996 1997 1995 1996 1997
South Africa 53149 29406 29285 118 120 117
Russian Fed 31703 29406 29285 21.1 19.6 19.5
Thailand 8613 8510 9146 14.3 14.1 15.2
Scotland 757 787 711 14.8 15.4 13.9
Sweden 822 913 843 9.3 10.4 9.6
Bulgaria 832 742 715 10.1 9 8.7
Finland 496 484 462 9.7 9.5 8.9
Argentina 2723 3001 3265 8 8.8 9.6
USA 8.2 7.4 6.8
Jordan 255 242 315 6.2 5.9 7.7
North Ireland 58 106 156 3.4 6.2 9.2
Belgium 392 425 494 4.9 4.2 4.9
Germany 3960 3531 3312 4.9 4.3 4.1
Denmark 205 225 274 3.9 4.3 5.3
New Zealand 125 119 165 3.7 3.5 4.9
Israel 251 219 237 4.6 4.1 4.4
Hungary 412 414 431 4 4 4.2
Portugal 408 391 381 3.9 3.7 3.6
France 2385 2085 2150 4.1 3.6 3.7
Australia 626 647 639 3.4 3.5 3.5
Poland 1176 1178 1136 3 3 2.9
Switzerland 162 199 189 2.3 2.8 2.7
Greece 285 318 350 2.7 3 3.3
Malaysia 434 497 592 2.2 2.5 3
England, Wales 1379 1355 2.6 2.6
China 27356 25411 26070 2.3 2.1 2.1
Norway 96 116 88 2.2 2.7 2
Hong Kong 80 74 107 1.4 1.3 1.9
Sth Korea 638 678 762 1.4 1.5 1.7
Spain 576 595 589 1.5 1.5 1.5
Ireland 45 49 39 1.3 1.4 1.1
Singapore 53 31 39 1.8 1.1 1.3
Japan 1281 1218 1282 1 1 1

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Homicides committed with a firearm.     Rates per 100,000
Country 1995 1996 1997 1995 1996 1997
Thailand 14090 18558 22042 23.4 30.8 36.6
South Africa 10681 11394 11224 23.7 25.2 24.9
Bulgaria 107 105 110 1.3 1.2 1.3
Portugal 132 130 126 1.26 1.24 1.2
Switzerland 65 80 91 0.9 1.1 1.3
Jordan 30 49 46 0.73 1.2 1.1
Germany 804 582 553 1 0.7 0.7
Australia 58 99 75 0.3 0.5 0.4
Ireland 12 16 9 0.34 0.46 0.26
Denmark 14 22 19 0.2 0.4 0.3
Scotland 11 25 6 0.2 0.5 0.1
Spain 107 148 132 0.27 0.38 0.34
Sweden 29 28 18 0.3 0.3 0.2
Poland 104 110 104 0.27 0.28 0.27
England, Wales 70 49 59 0.13 0.09 0.11
Hong Kong 3 4 2 0.05 0.07 0.03
Japan 17 0.01
Singapore 0 0 0 0 0 0

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Total recorded rapes.     Rates per 100,000
Country 1995 1996 1997 1995 1996 1997
South Africa 47506 50481 52159 105 112 115
Australia 13099 14542 14353 71.6 79.5 78.4
USA 37.1 36.3 35.9
New Zealand 1203 1230 1221 35.4 35.1 35.9
Chile 3165 4037 3849 22.6 28.8 27.5
North Ireland 259 292 294 15.2 17.2 17.3
Sweden 1363 1255 1302 15.5 14.3 14.8
Belgium 1280 1433 1694 12.6 14.2 16.8
France 7191 8213 7828 12.4 14.2 13.5
Scotland 598 599 739 11.2 11.7 14.5
Sth Korea 4693 5307 5327 10.3 11.7 11.7
England, Wales 5136 5990 6628 9.8 11.4 12.6
Bulgaria 925 767 774 11.3 9.3 9.4
Norway 369 423 424 8.6 9.8 9.8
Israel 526 511 519 9.7 9.5 9.6
Finland 446 395 468 8.7 7.7 9.2
Denmark 440 388 435 8.5 7.5 8.4
Germany 6175 6228 6636 7.6 7.7 8.2
Russian Fed 12515 10888 9307 8.3 7.2 6.2
Malaysia 1029 1098 1429 5.2 5.6 7.3
Ireland 191 180 256 5.5 5.1 7.3
Poland 2267 1985 2260 5.8 5.1 5.8
Portugal 534 494 551 5.1 4.7 5.2
Switzerland 301 344 370 4.2 4.8 5.2
Hungary 417 423 392 4.0 4.1 3.8
China 41823 42820 40699 3.5 3.5 3.4
Singapore 102 99 103 3.5 3.4 3.5
Greece 171 144 166 1.6 1.4 1.6
Hong Kong 103 86 74 1.8 1.5 1.3
Japan 1500 1483 1657 1.2 1.2 1.3

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It would make sense to view this table in conjunction with the one below it, as in some cases robberies are recorded as assaults and vice versa.

Total recorded robberies.     Rates per 100,000
Country 1995 1996 1997 1995 1996 1997
Chile 58011 64976 70189 414 464 501
South Africa 120952 118755 122369 268 263 271
Spain 80210 90941 95383 205 233 245
USA 221 202 186
England, Wales 68074 74035 63072 130 141 120
Portugal 14394 12892 13901 137 123 132
Scotland 5330 5254 4484 105 103 88
France 52765 57815 60351 91 100 104
Australia 14564 16372 21305 80 90 117
North Ireland 1539 1725 1653 91 101 97
Ireland 2624 3354 2558 75 96 73
Germany 63470 67578 69569 78 83 86
Russian Fed 140597 121356 112051 94 81 75
Bulgaria 6146 5880 6706 75 72 82
Poland 26858 26257 30063 69 68 78
Hong Kong 5554 3928 2993 99 70 54
Sweden 5747 5821 6641 65 66 75
New Zealand 1887 1962 2132 54 56 61
Denmark 2039 2280 2523 39 44 49
Finland 2190 2087 2016 43 41 40
Malaysia 6049 7074 9027 31 36 46
Belgium 2092 2699 3595 21 27 36
Hungary 2657 2689 3056 26 26 30
Israel 1029 1229 1577 19 23 29
Norway 771 825 883 18 19 21
Switzerland 1855 2238 2498 26 32 35
Singapore 784 768 741 27 27 26
Greece 1417 1417 1878 13 13 18
China 164478 151147 141514 14 13 12
Sth Korea 3539 3364 4027 8 7 9
Japan 2277 2463 2809 1.8 2 2.2

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It would make sense to view this table in conjunction with the one above, as in some cases robberies are recorded as assaults and vice versa.

Total recorded assaults.     Rates per 100,000
Country 1995 1996 1997 1995 1996 1997
Scotland 52705 53754 55384 1033 1054 1086
New Zealand 35991 35511 34866 1028 1015 996
South Africa 426091 435758 436417 945 966 967
Sweden 54380 53731 55109 618 610 626
Australia 101710 114156 124500 556 624 680
Belgium 46253 49348 54012 458 488 535
England, Wales 203461 228636 239326 388 436 457
Finland 22188 24542 24847 435 481 487
USA 418 391 382
Portugal 34720 35449 37161 330 337 354
Israel 16975 16745 14307 314 310 265
Greece 27395 27804 28098 259 262 265
North Ireland 4321 4614 4079 254 271 240
Norway 9423 10097 10110 219 235 235
Denmark 8622 8589 8734 166 165 168
Spain 61876 52227 60384 159 134 155
France 75425 81910 86796 130 141 150
Hong Kong 7872 7728 7585 141 138 135
Germany 95759 101333 106222 118 124 130
Hungary 10955 10323 10845 106 100 105
Poland 28701 30946 33511 74 80 86
Bulgaria 3280 3257 3486 40 40 43
Japan 35860 37506 40570 29 30 32
Singapore 716 784 634 25 27 22
Malaysia 3111 3671 5871 16 19 30
Sth Korea 4879 4940 4974 11 11 11
China 72259 68992 69071 6 6 6

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This data is somewhat dependent on the definition of a serious assault, although for the UN survey it was generally defined as one resulting in injuries requiring medical attention.

Total recorded major assaults.     Rates per 100,000
Country 1995 1996 1997 1995 1996 1997
South Africa 220990 230425 234554 490 511 520
Scotland 6101 6149 5296 120 121 104
Chile 13676 17038 15926 98 122 114
Israel 1576 3833 11380 29 71 210
Hungary 8385 7795 8083 81 76 79
New Zealand 2130 2305 2411 61 66 69
Greece 6859 6479 6582 65 61 62
Sweden 3790 3 3400 3357 43 38 38
Finland 1955 1926 1852 38 38 36
North Ireland 549 598 562 32 35 33
Poland 11078 12841 14194 29 33 37
Jordan 927 1515 1000 23 37 24
Spain 9479 10199 7941 24 26 20
England, Wales 10445 12169 12531 20 23 24
Denmark 905 914 919 17.5 17.5 18
Bulgaria 1252 1172 1334 15 14 16
Portugal 932 958 959 9 9 9
Singapore 202 171 116 7 6 4
China 19192 17837 18025 1.6 1.5 1.5

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Note that rates of car theft are inevitably lower in countries with much lower than average levels of car ownership, such as mainland China, although this does not fully explain our extremely high rate of car theft. Japan has an even higher rate of car ownership than New Zealand, yet car theft is extremely rare there.

Total recorded automobile theft.     Rates per 100,000
Country 1995 1996 1997 1995 1996 1997
New Zealand 30380 32640 31384 894 960 923
England, Wales508450 493489 407239 970 942 777
Sweden 70299 71567 78826 799 813 896
Denmark 36737 43187 42701 707 831 821
Israel 33144 37396 45926 614 692 850
Australia 127094 122914 130138 695 672 711
Scotland 37514 34161 28646 736 670 562
France 344860 321418 317474 595 554 547
USA 560 526 506
North Ireland 7794 8404 8633 458 494 508
Norway 18281 17243 16224 425 401 354
Finland 19772 20261 22015 387 397 432
Ireland 11754 13405 13589 336 383 388
Belgium 37843 35593 36851 374 352 365
Spain 78462 92275 109407 201 237 281
South Africa 101056 96715 100637 224 214 223
Germany 201493 170941 138098 248 210 170
Portugal 17334 19993 22792 165 190 217
Bulgaria 15040 12042 9989 183 147 122
Hungary 12132 16168 14413 118 157 140
Greece 12814 14679 17526 121 139 165
Malaysia 20287 25185 31896 103 128 162
Poland 50684 47557 53319 131 123 137
Switzerland 8017 7863 8167 113 111 115
Singapore 2647 2467 2242 91 85 77
Hong Kong 4261 2561 2184 76 46 39
Japan 35730 33722 34489 28.5 27 27.5
China 92862 89992 111672 8 7 9

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Note that much burglary in South Africa goes unreported. Burglary is also somewhat affected by the type of housing most prevalent in a country - apartments are less vulnerable than Nz suburban style housing for instance. Japan is absent from this data set as burglary and other forms of theft are all rolled into one (yet their entire theft per capita figure is half what ours is for burglary alone).

Total recorded burglaries.     Rates per 100,000
Country 1995 1996 1997 1995 1996 1997
New Zealand 85007 81545 86539 2429 2330 2472
Australia 385162 402079 421569 2105 2197 2303
Denmark 106533 109382 111499 2049 2103 2144
England, Wales 1239484 1164583 1015075 2365 2222 1937
Finland 96496 88953 87682 1892 1744 1719
Sweden 142568 144900 147291 1620 1647 1674
Scotland 74235 64470 55471 1456 1264 1088
Switzerland 67044 74321 82559 944 1047 1163
Israel 47739 51621 67334 884 956 1247
Bulgaria 80671 70126 85356 984 855 1041
USA 987 945 919
Hungary 82201 95046 97110 798 923 943
North Ireland 16457 16114 14306 968 948 842
Ireland 30993 29735 27503 885 849 786
Poland 304899 305703 324017 786 788 835
South Africa 330442 334301 337985 733 741 749
France 436414 407385 395913 752 702 683
Portugal 50325 50228 50853 479 478 484
Greece 41619 42463 43884 392 400 414
Spain 139405 145790 144023 357 374 369
Hong Kong 13178 10504 8718 235 187 155
Malaysia 22100 22828 29360 112 116 149
Norway 4143 4409 4448 96 103 104
Singapore 1921 1737 1526 6660 53
Sth Korea 2403 2254 2284 5 5 5

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Treat the below figures with caution. Some of these do not include all crime in the total. Such countries include NZ, South Africa Spain and others.

Grand total of recorded crimes.     Rates per 100,000
Country 1995 1996 1997 1995 1996 1997
Sweden 1145945 1175339 1196065 13022 133356 13591
Denmark 538963 528488 531102 10364 10163 10213
Scotland 522301 499561 470730 10241 9795 9230
England, Wales 5100241 5036552 4598327 9733 9612 8775
Germany 6668717 6647598 6586165 8202 8176 8101
Belgium 717780 741534 818759 7106 7342 8106
Finland 381652 376788 373846 7483 7388 7330
Norway 285900 292249 308055 6649 6976 7164
Israel 298610 316970 366282 5530 5870 6783
New Zealand 176933 173599 180962 5204 5106 5322
South Africa 2056569 2049100 2073046 5164 5135 5195
USA 5276 5087 4930
Hungary 502036 466050 514403 4874 4525 4994
Switzerland 305000 313000 338000 4296 4408 4761
France 2529155 2459276 2512352 4361 4240 4332
North Ireland 68808 68549 62222 4048 4032 3660
Australia 642255 670710 712504 3510 3665 3893
Greece 329110 349476 377871 3105 3297 3565
Portugal 326572 322256 321643 3110 3069 3063
Sth Korea 1202059 1287260 1398384 2642 2829 3073
Bulgaria 207018 196239 241787 2524 2393 2948
Ireland 102484 100785 90875 2928 2879 2596
Poland 974941 897751 992373 2513 2314 2558
Singapore 61088 59524 56879 2106 2052 1961
Spain 683977 698533 693804 1754 1791 1779
Japan 1784432 1812119 1899564 1426 1450 1520
Hong Kong 91886 79050 67367 1640 1411 1202
Malaysia 102898 111113 150274 522 564 763
China 1690407 1600716 1613629 140 132 133

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