Māori victimisation

On this page you’ll find answers to the questions:

The 2014 NZCASS included a Māori booster sample to help increase the sample size for Māori. The total number of interviews achieved with people identifying as Māori was 2,384 out of 6,943.

How much crime do Māori experience?

Overall, Māori (33%) were more likely than the NZ average (24%) to have experienced 1 or more offences in 2013.

In 2013, Māori were more likely than the NZ average to be victims of all types of crime, including interpersonal violence, burglary, vehicle, and theft and damage offences:

Violent interpersonal offences: 19% of Māori experienced one or more violent interpersonal offences in 2013, higher than the NZ average of 10%. Māori were also more likely than the NZ average to be victims of interpersonal violence regardless of the victim’s relationship to the offender.
Burglary: 13% of Māori experienced one or more burglaries in 2013, higher than the NZ average of 8%
Theft and damage offences: 9% of Māori experienced one or more theft and damage offences in 2013, higher than the NZ average of 6%
Vehicle offences: 9% of Māori with regular access to a vehicle experienced one or more vehicle offence in 2013, higher than the NZ average of 7%

Note: Burglary and vehicle offences are household offences and, in the NZCASS, ethnicity is based on the respondent’s ethnicity rather than all household members’. As such, use caution when interpreting the above statistics.

Are Māori still more likely to be victims after controlling for age and deprivation differences?

Māori have a younger population than Europeans and, proportionally, more Māori live in areas of high deprivation. Since younger people and those living in more deprived areas are more likely to be victims, we asked: If the demographic profile of Māori and Europeans was the same as the combined average, would Māori still be more highly victimised?

Before controlling for age and deprivation differences, 33% of Māori experienced one or more crimes in 2013, compared to 23% Europeans – a difference of 10 percentage points.

After we controlled for both age and deprivation, this gap between Māori and European victimisation closes to 3 percentage points. While age and deprivation account for over two-thirds of the difference, 3 percentage points is still a statistically significant difference and indicates there is something else that makes Māori more highly victimised.

Are Māori more likely to be repeat victims of crime?

Repeat victimisation is when someone has experienced the same type of offence two or more times.

When we look at the repeat victims of crime in 2013, we find that Māori were more likely than the NZ average to be repeat victims of crime across all offence types:

Violent interpersonal offences: 12% of Māori experienced two or more violent interpersonal offences, higher than the NZ average of 5%
Burglary: 4% of Māori experienced two or more burglaries, higher than the NZ average of 2%
Thefts and damage offences: 3% of Māori experienced two or more theft and damage offences, higher than the NZ average of 2%
Vehicle offences: 2% of Māori with regular access to a vehicle experienced two or more vehicle offences, higher than the NZ average of 1%.

When someone experiences five or more offences in 12 months, they are considered a chronic victim of crime. In 2013, 9% of Māori experienced five or more offences compared to the NZ average of 3%, indicating that Māori were more likely than the NZ average to be chronic victims of crime.

Who in the Māori population are more at risk of victimisation?

Generally, some Māori were more likely than the Māori average (33%) to have been victimised once or more in 2013. They:

lived in Auckland (41%) or a main urban area (38%)
were younger – 15–19 year (40%) and 20–29 years (42%)
were financially stressed – could not meet an unexpected expense (41%) and were ‘very limited or couldn’t buy an item for $300’ (39%)
didn’t have a partner (37%) or their partnership wasn’t legally registered (38%)
were female (36%)
had a personal income of $30,000 or less (36%)

Are Māori worried about victimisation?

When asked how worried they were about victimisation in 2014, Māori were more worried about victimisation than the NZ average in all areas asked about:

55% of Māori were worried about credit card fraud, higher than the NZ average of 49%
52% of Māori were worried about burglary, higher than the NZ average of 47%
46% of Māori were worried about vehicle theft, higher than the NZ average of 37%
47% of Māori were worried about vehicle damage or interference, higher than the NZ average of 42%
33% of Māori were worried about robbery, higher than the NZ average of 29%
33% of Māori were worried about assault by strangers, higher than the NZ average of 28%
15% of Māori were worried about assault by people they knew, higher than the NZ average of 10%
27% of Māori were worried about sexual assault, higher than the NZ average of 23%
58% of Māori were worried about a traffic accident caused by a drunk driver, higher than the NZ average of 49%

While Māori were more likely than the NZ average to be worried about being victimised in all the above areas, Māori (17%) were not more or less likely than the NZ average (16%) to be very or fairly worried about being intimidated, harassed or assaulted due to their ethnicity.

This page was last updated: 04th March 2020