IR-01-23-34546
27 November 2023
Joshua Rogers
[FYI request #24564 email]
Tēnā koe Joshua
Request for information
Thank you for your Official Information Act 1982 (OIA) request of 28 October 2023, in
which you asked for information regarding theft-ex shop in Hamilton. You requested the
following:
1.
Please provide data for al filed theft ex shop cases in the last two years.
2. In a separate sheet (Stil on the same excel document) please provide
resolved theft ex shop cases over the last two years)
3. In another sheet please provide a month to month breakdown of the following:
-Cases received/reported
-Cases prosecuted/charged
-Cases filed - no further charges/investigation -Cases with alternate resolution -
TPO, diversion etc.
-Cases with investigations pending.
Police publishes summary statistics on victimisations including your interest in theft-ex
shop. These statistics can be viewed and downloaded online from policedata.nz
(https://www.police.govt.nz/about-us/publications-statistics/data-and-
statistics/policedatanz) where there is also a description of the core Recorded Crime
Victims Statistics (RCVS) collection on which these are based. A victimisation counts
each occasion of a person being victimised for each given type of offence division.
Victimisations are classified according to the most serious offences within an offence
division.
You have asked for more detailed data about these victimisations in terms of whether
they are resolved. There is a description of the RCVS collection available at
https://www.police.govt.nz/sites/default/files/publications/nz recorded crime victims ma
nual v1.2.pdf and you will find the details of the outcome of investigation at section 3.14.
I turn first to your request for monthly data (identified as Question 3 above) and this is
provided in the attached Table 1. It provides details of the currently recorded Outcome of
Investigation for Theft ex shop victimisations reported since 2021.
Outcome of Investigation values are tabled overleaf.
Court action
Non-court action
Formal caution or formal warning
No offender proceeded against
Withdrawn by victim
Withdrawn by witness
Informal warning or informal caution
No crime
Investigation continuing
Investigation suspended
No proceeding - initial attendance only
Not pursued - Police discretion
Noting that victimisations reported in the latter months of the time series have not had the
same length of time for investigations and outcomes to be determined as those in the
earlier part of the time series. Thus, latter cases are more likely to have an Outcome of
Investigation of
Investigation continuing and less likely to have offenders identified (e.g.,
Court Action).
Question 2 is a subset of the outcomes of investigation provided in response to Question
3. For the purposes of counting as resolved, Police count those indicated as grey as
resolved.
Question 1 seeks information on the filed cases in the last two years. This is presented as
Table 2 in the attached spreadsheet.
These cases are not the same cohort as the victimisations in question 3 and is a count of
cases not victimisations and may also relate to cases reported in an earlier period. In
addition, a victimisation counted as resolved in Question 3 may not have had its case filed
and this may not occur until the conclusion of court and other actions, which can take
many months.
Please note that as part of its commitment to openness and transparency, Police
proactively releases some information and documents that may be of interest to the
public. Therefore, an anonymised version of this response may be publicly released on
the New Zealand Police website.
You have the right to ask the Ombudsman to review my decision if you are not satisfied
with the response to your request. Information about how to make a complaint is available
at: www.ombudsman.parliament.nz.
I trust this information is sufficient for your purposes. If you have any questions regarding
this data, please feel free to contact me via [email address].
Yours sincerely
Zane Kearns
Director (Acting)
Performance and Data
New Zealand Police
