Dear Ministry of Justice,

I am writing to request information under the Official Information Act 1982 regarding crime rates, justice system utilization, corrections costs, and their relationship to economic conditions. This request focuses on whether the Ministry monitors and analyzes economic drivers of crime and coordinates this information with economic policy agencies.
1. CRIME DATA AND ECONOMIC CORRELATIONS

1.1 Crime Rate Time-Series Data:

Please provide for the period 2015-2024 (or most recent available):

Monthly recorded crime rates for:
Violent crime (assault, robbery, homicide)
Family violence incidents
Property crime (burglary, theft, shoplifting)
Drug offences
Fraud and white-collar crime
Data disaggregated by:
Geographic region
Offender age group
Offender ethnicity
Victim demographics

1.2 Economic Stress Crime Indicators:

Please provide any Ministry analysis of:

Correlations between unemployment rates and property crime rates
Correlations between cost of living increases and shoplifting/theft
Correlations between interest rate increases and family violence
Correlations between benefit sanction rates and crime rates
Crime pattern changes during economic recessions versus growth periods

1.3 Offender Economic Circumstances:

Please provide data on:

Employment status of offenders at time of offending
Benefit recipient status of offenders
Housing status (homeowner, renter, homeless) of offenders
Debt levels and financial stress indicators in offender backgrounds
Whether "financial hardship" or "economic stress" is systematically coded as an offending factor

2. COST OF CRIME ANALYSIS

2.1 Updated Cost of Crime Estimates:

In my previous request to Treasury (OIA 20250861), I noted that Treasury's last comprehensive cost-of-crime analysis dates to 2003/04 at $9.1 billion. Please provide:

The Ministry of Justice's current estimate of total annual cost of crime (most recent year available)
Methodology for calculating this figure
Breakdown by crime categories (violent, property, white-collar, etc.)
When this analysis was last updated

2.2 Cost Categories:

Please provide breakdown of crime costs including:

Direct justice system costs (Police, courts, prosecution, legal aid)
Corrections costs (imprisonment, community sentences, rehabilitation)
Victim costs (medical treatment, counselling, lost productivity)
Property damage and theft losses
Social costs (fear of crime, reduced quality of life)
Lost economic productivity from incarceration

2.3 Cost Projections:

Please provide:

10-year projections of justice system costs under current policy settings
30-year projections if available
Assumptions about crime rate trends underlying these projections
Whether projections assume economic conditions remain stable

3. CORRECTIONS SYSTEM DEMAND AND COSTS

3.1 Prison Population Data:

Please provide for 2015-2024:

Monthly prison population (total and per capita)
Average sentence length by offence type
Remand versus sentenced prisoner ratios
Re-imprisonment rates (recidivism)
Prison population projections to 2030, 2040

3.2 Economic Circumstances of Prisoners:

Please provide any Ministry analysis of:

Employment status of individuals prior to imprisonment
Benefit receipt history of prisoners
Educational attainment levels
Intergenerational patterns (children of prisoners becoming prisoners)
Whether prisoners come disproportionately from economically deprived communities

3.3 Cost per Prisoner:

Please provide:

Average annual cost per prisoner (most recent year)
Total annual corrections budget 2015-2024
Projected corrections costs to 2030
Analysis of whether corrections spending growth is sustainable

4. REOFFENDING AND INTERGENERATIONAL CRIME

4.1 Recidivism Analysis:

Please provide:

Reoffending rates within 1 year, 2 years, 5 years of release
Analysis of factors predicting reoffending (unemployment, homelessness, lack of support)
Cost of reoffending versus cost of rehabilitation and support
Whether economic support upon release reduces reoffending

4.2 Intergenerational Justice Involvement:

Please provide any Ministry analysis of:

Children of prisoners: likelihood of future offending and imprisonment
Whether children in Oranga Tamariki care show elevated justice involvement
Whether poverty and welfare dependency predict intergenerational crime patterns
Fiscal cost of intergenerational crime cycles

4.3 Breaking the Cycle:

Please provide any Ministry analysis of:

Cost-effectiveness of prevention versus incarceration
Whether early intervention in high-risk families reduces long-term justice costs
Return on investment for social programs preventing crime versus managing offenders

5. PREVENTIVE VS. PUNITIVE APPROACHES

5.1 Economic Efficiency Analysis:

Please provide any Ministry analysis comparing:

Cost of punitive justice approaches (longer sentences, more imprisonment) versus preventive/rehabilitative approaches
International comparisons: countries with lower imprisonment rates and their justice costs
Whether reducing poverty and inequality would be more cost-effective than expanding corrections capacity

5.2 Alternative Justice Models:

Please provide any Ministry analysis of:

Restorative justice outcomes and cost-effectiveness
Community-based sentences versus imprisonment: recidivism and cost comparison
Therapeutic courts (drug courts, mental health courts) versus traditional prosecution
Whether addressing root causes (addiction, mental health, poverty) is cheaper than punishment

5.3 Māori Justice Outcomes:

Please provide:

Māori imprisonment rates compared to general population
Analysis of drivers of Māori overrepresentation in justice system
Whether economic deprivation explains disparities
Cost-benefit analysis of addressing Māori economic inequality versus current justice expenditure on Māori offenders

6. COORDINATION WITH ECONOMIC POLICY AGENCIES

6.1 Information Sharing with Treasury:

Please provide documentation of:

What crime and corrections cost data the Ministry routinely provides to Treasury
Whether Treasury incorporates justice system cost projections into fiscal planning
Whether the Ministry has warned Treasury about justice cost blowouts driven by economic policy settings
Any memoranda of understanding regarding justice system fiscal impacts

6.2 Coordination with Reserve Bank:

Please provide documentation of:

Whether the Ministry notifies RBNZ about crime pattern correlations with economic conditions
Whether RBNZ consults the Ministry before OCR decisions about potential crime impacts
Any joint analysis between Ministry of Justice and RBNZ on monetary policy and crime

6.3 Cross-Agency Coordination:

Please confirm:

Whether the Ministry coordinates with MSD on benefit policy impacts on crime
Whether the Ministry coordinates with Health NZ on mental health/addiction drivers of crime
Whether the Ministry coordinates with Oranga Tamariki on child welfare-to-justice pathways
Any formal mechanisms for the Ministry to influence social policy based on crime prevention evidence

7. ECONOMIC POLICY IMPACT ASSESSMENT

7.1 Budget Measure Impacts:

Please provide any Ministry analysis of crime impacts from:

Benefit cuts or sanctions → crime rate changes
Social housing reduction → property crime and homelessness-related offending
Mental health service cuts → crime committed by people with untreated mental illness
Education funding changes → youth crime patterns

7.2 OCR and Monetary Policy Impacts:

Please provide any Ministry analysis of:

Whether OCR increases and resulting financial stress correlate with crime increases
Historical analysis: previous OCR tightening cycles and crime patterns
Whether mortgage stress and housing insecurity drive family violence and property crime

7.3 Cost-Benefit of Economic Policy:

Please provide any Ministry analysis of:

Whether fiscal savings from reduced social spending are offset by increased justice system costs
Examples where cutting preventive programs led to increased crime costs exceeding savings
Whether the Ministry has calculated the justice system cost of economic austerity

8. FAMILY VIOLENCE AND ECONOMIC STRESS

8.1 Family Violence Data:

Please provide for 2015-2024:

Monthly family violence incident reports
Protection order applications
Family violence prosecutions and convictions
Family violence homicides

8.2 Economic Correlations:

Please provide any Ministry analysis of:

Whether family violence increases during economic downturns
Correlations between unemployment and family violence
Correlations between housing stress and family violence
Whether financial counselling/support reduces family violence

8.3 Cost Analysis:

Please provide:

Total annual cost of family violence (justice system, health, social services, lost productivity)
Whether addressing economic stress would reduce family violence and associated costs
Cost-benefit analysis of economic support versus family violence intervention

9. YOUTH JUSTICE

9.1 Youth Crime Trends:

Please provide:

Youth offending rates 2015-2024 by age group and offence type
Youth justice facility population trends
Projections of future youth justice demand

9.2 Risk Factors:

Please provide any Ministry analysis of:

Economic circumstances of young offenders (family poverty, benefit dependency, housing instability)
Educational disengagement and economic insecurity as crime predictors
Whether children from economically deprived backgrounds are overrepresented in youth justice

9.3 Prevention Investment:

Please provide:

Cost comparison: youth justice intervention versus early childhood support
Whether investing in child poverty reduction would reduce long-term youth justice costs
International examples of countries that reduced youth crime through social investment

10. VICTIM SUPPORT AND COSTS

10.1 Victim Costs:

Please provide:

Annual victim support service costs
Victim compensation scheme payments
ACC claims related to crime injuries
Total economic burden on crime victims

10.2 Victim Demographics:

Please provide any analysis of:

Whether economically vulnerable people are disproportionately crime victims
Whether poverty areas have higher victimization rates
Whether crime creates poverty (victims losing income, incurring costs)

11. JUSTICE SYSTEM CAPACITY

11.1 Court Backlogs:

Please provide:

Current court case backlog levels
Average time from charge to trial/sentencing
Whether backlogs have worsened and drivers of this
Cost of court delays to defendants, victims, and system

11.2 Legal Aid:

Please provide:

Legal aid expenditure trends 2015-2024
Number of people requiring legal aid
Whether legal aid eligibility captures people in financial hardship
Unmet legal aid demand

11.3 System Sustainability:

Please provide:

Whether current justice system funding is adequate for demand
Projected funding gaps if crime rates don't decrease
Whether economic conditions are creating justice system demand that exceeds capacity

12. INTERNATIONAL COMPARISONS

12.1 Imprisonment Rates:

Please provide:

New Zealand's imprisonment rate compared to OECD countries
Countries with lower imprisonment rates: their crime rates and approaches
Cost comparison: NZ justice system versus more rehabilitation-focused countries

12.2 Best Practice:

Please provide any Ministry analysis of:

International evidence on economic security and crime reduction
Countries that successfully reduced crime through social investment
Whether New Zealand could learn from Nordic models combining social welfare and low crime

13. LONGITUDINAL AND CAUSAL ANALYSIS

13.1 Life Course Studies:

Please provide any Ministry analysis tracking:

Poverty → educational failure → unemployment → crime pathways
Childhood adversity (abuse, neglect, poverty) → adult offending
Intergenerational transmission of offending in economically deprived families

13.2 Natural Experiments:

Please provide any Ministry analysis of crime impacts from:

1991 benefit cuts → crime rate changes
2008 GFC → crime patterns
COVID-19 economic support → crime trends versus periods without support
2021-2023 OCR increases → property crime and family violence patterns

14. TRANSPARENCY AND ACCOUNTABILITY

14.1 Published Research:

Please confirm:

Whether any of the analyses requested above exist but have not been publicly released
Reasons for non-publication
Whether the Ministry publishes crime data correlated with economic indicators

14.2 Ministerial Briefings:**

Please provide (titles and dates):

Briefings to Ministers in the last 5 years regarding economic drivers of crime
Warnings about justice system costs increasing due to economic policy settings
Recommendations to Cabinet regarding economic policy settings to reduce crime

15. CLARIFICATION QUESTIONS

15.1 Does the Ministry of Justice consider it within its mandate to advocate for economic policy settings that reduce crime, or is the Ministry limited to managing crime regardless of its economic causes?

15.2 Has the Ministry ever been directed not to analyze or publish correlations between economic conditions and crime rates?

15.3 If the Ministry has evidence that economic hardship drives crime, does the Ministry have an obligation to make this evidence public and advocate for addressing root causes?

15.4 Does the Ministry believe that addressing poverty and inequality would be more cost-effective than expanding the justice system to manage crime caused by economic deprivation?
RATIONALE FOR THIS REQUEST:

This request addresses whether New Zealand's justice system is documenting and responding to evidence that economic policy is driving crime.

Criminological research establishes clear links between:

Economic deprivation and property crime
Unemployment and offending
Financial stress and family violence
Inequality and violent crime

If the Ministry is tracking these correlations but not sharing them with economic policy agencies, this represents a system coordination failure.

If the Ministry is not analyzing these pathways despite having the data, this represents a missed opportunity for evidence-based crime prevention.

If the Ministry has evidence of economic drivers of crime but has been prevented from publishing it or advocating for addressing root causes, this raises serious policy questions.

The public has a right to know:

Whether crime is driven by economic conditions
Whether addressing economic security would be more cost-effective than expanding the justice system
Whether economic policy agencies are informed of crime impacts before making decisions
Whether justice system costs from economic policy decisions are factored into fiscal planning

This request is made in context of:

Treasury's claim (OIA 20250861) that no analysis exists of justice costs related to economic policy settings
The need to understand whether service delivery agencies coordinate with policy agencies on demand drivers
Rising corrections costs and questions about sustainability

The Ministry's mission includes reducing crime and improving justice outcomes. This requires understanding and addressing root causes of offending, including economic determinants. Transparency about economic drivers of crime is essential for evidence-based policy.

I am happy to discuss this request if clarification would be helpful.

Yours faithfully,
Hayden