Murders, rapes and assaults dominate newspaper headlines and outrage the public – but violent crime is only 14% of recorded offences. However, rates of all types of violent crime have increased hugely since the Second World War.
Violent crime attracts more public attention in New Zealand than any other form of crime. Murders, assaults and rapes dominate newspaper headlines, attract television news viewers, and ignite public debate about harsher sentences for offenders and better support for victims of crime. However, violent crime was only 14% of all recorded offences in 2008, and murder and manslaughter made up fewer than 0.4% of all violent offences between 1994 and 2000.
Violent crime includes homicide (such as murder and manslaughter), kidnapping and abduction, robbery, assaults (grievous, serious or minor), intimidation and threats, and group assemblies (offences such as unlawful assembly, harassment and rioting). Much of the violent crime reported to the police relates to minor offences, but serious and grievous assaults were 44.4% of all forms of reported violent offending in 2008.
Other crimes of violence include domestic violence, sexual abuse and child abuse, but these crimes usually occur behind closed doors and are often unreported. As a result, official figures reveal only a fraction of the true picture.
Reported domestic disputes peaked in the early 1990s and dropped in the mid-1990s, but rose again at the end of the decade. Since then reported domestic disputes have grown steadily. In 2007 the number of recorded incidents was more than double the rate for 1997. Approximately 40% of all homicides are domestic-related.
In the early 2000s the Department of Child, Youth and Family (CYF) received about 40,000 notifications of suspected child abuse and neglect each year. About 36,000 required further action. On average, nine children under the age of 15 were killed each year between 1991 and 2000 – about 15% of all homicides. Children under five were most at risk, and two-thirds of the perpetrators were male. A quarter of those who killed children were their mothers, 30% were their fathers and 18% were the de-facto partner of a parent.
The discovery of the bodies of two women buried below the floor of a house in Christchurch in September 2009, following a number of other high-profile murders, led to the city being described as ‘New Zealand’s capital of bizarre crime’1. However, the police stated that Christchurch was not more prone to violent crime than other New Zealand cities.
In New Zealand law, kidnapping is the unlawful detention or carrying away of any person against his or her will. Abduction is carrying away a woman or girl for the purposes of marrying her or having sex with her against her will. Kidnapping and abduction carry a maximum penalty of 14 years’ imprisonment.
These crimes are uncommon in New Zealand, and before 2006 there were fewer than 100 a year. Since 2005, however, these offences have become more frequent, and more than 250 abductions and kidnappings were recorded annually in 2006, 2007 and 2008. The reasons for the sudden increase are unclear.
Rates of violent crime (based on both reports and convictions) have increased since the Second World War. These increases have occurred across all forms of violent crime – murder, manslaughter, assaults, robbery, sexual assault and domestic violence, as well as violence against children.
Violent crimes reported to the police increased from 640 per 100,000 people in 1985 to a peak of 1,562 in 1996. After that they decreased slightly, but soon began to rise again. In 2008 nearly 1,400 violent crimes were reported per 100,000 citizens. Recent increases in reports of violent crime are related to a rise in recorded family violence. This is probably due to lower tolerance of domestic violence, and to police training initiatives that increased police responsiveness to complaints about family violence.
In 2000 New Zealand’s rate of violent crime was slightly higher than Australia’s. There were almost identical rates for homicide, but New Zealand had higher rates for assault and Australia’s sexual-assault rates were higher. International comparison of crime rates, including rates of violent crime, is very difficult because countries record crime rates in different ways.
Society’s abhorrence of violent crime has been reflected in prison sentences. Sentences for violent offences are harsher than for other crimes. The Criminal Justice Act 1985 made imprisonment virtually mandatory for violent offences punishable by at least five years’ imprisonment. Amendments to this legislation in 1987 and 1993 increased levels of imprisonment and non-parole periods (the period during which an offender cannot apply to be released from prison) for violent offences. Release conditions were tightened and the maximum penalty for sexual violation extended from 14 years to 20 years. Average sentences for very serious offences increased sharply between 1986 and 1996.
The Parole Act 2002 and the Sentencing Act 2002 created a minimum non-parole period of 17 years for murder committed under certain aggravating circumstances (including long-term planning, home invasion or high levels of brutality), and extended the scope of preventive detention (indefinite imprisonment). Prison sentences increased; there were fewer early-parole releases and a greater number of recalls for parole violation. Lobby groups such as the Sensible Sentencing Trust continued to argue that more severe sentences were needed to act as a deterrent against violent crime and as a form of justice for the victims of crime. Others, however, argued in favour of a more rehabilitative approach to offending.
The profile of criminal violence appears to have altered little in response to these sentencing and parole changes. However, in January 2010 the government announced its intention to introduce a version of the US’s 'three strikes and you're out' policy, which would see some repeat violent offenders serving maximum sentences without the possibility of parole.
There are two main categories of culpable homicide (the illegal killing of one person by another) – murder and manslaughter. Murder is when one person kills another deliberately or while acting recklessly, knowing that death is likely. Manslaughter generally refers to accidental homicide arising from an unlawful act or failure to act, where death could not reasonably be expected.
Rates of reported murder and manslaughter increased steadily from an average of 18 a year in the 1950s to 43 in the 1970s. They reached a peak of over 90 per year between 1990 and 1992. After 2000, reported homicides stabilised at an average of 66 per year.
Before the 1970s about 10 murders a year were reported to the police. Numbers of reported murders rose in the 1970s and 1980s, with an average of 65 a year between 1985 and 1992. Reported murders have been stable since 2000, averaging 54 a year.
There are a number of possible reasons for murder and manslaughter increases in the 1990s.
The decrease in the murder and manslaughter rate in the 2000s may be due to several factors.
In nearly all cases of murder, life imprisonment is mandatory. This usually means a non-parole period of at least 10 years, unless the sentencing judge imposes an extended non-parole period. If one of a number of aggravating features is present – for instance, more than one person is killed, or the crime involves extreme cruelty – the automatic non-parole minimum is 17 years.
In the case of manslaughter a judge has discretion to impose any penalty up to and including life imprisonment.
The longest non-parole period ever given in New Zealand was 30 years, to William Bell for murdering three people at the Mt Wellington–Panmure RSA club in 2001 while on parole for aggravated robbery.
The first person to be executed in New Zealand was Maketū Wharetōtara, the son of the Ngāpuhi chief Ruhe of Waimate. He was publicly hanged in Auckland in 1842, aged about 16, after being convicted of killing five people. The last person to be hanged was Walter Bolton, a 68-year-old Whanganui farm manager who was executed in 1957 for poisoning his wife, Beatrice. The Crown alleged that Bolton had regularly put small amounts of powdered sheep dip (with arsenic) into her tea. Between 1842 and 1957, 85 people were executed for murder.
Until 1941 hanging was mandatory for murder, although many death sentences were commuted to life imprisonment. Nonetheless, 77 people were executed between the time New Zealand became a Crown colony in 1840 and abolition of the death penalty in 1941.
In 1950 capital punishment resumed as a result of public pressure, and eight more men were hanged before it was finally abolished in 1961. Only one woman was executed in New Zealand – Williamina (Minnie) Dean was hanged at Invercargill in 1895 for the murder of a baby.
Murder trials have always attracted public attention in New Zealand, particularly if the accused are female, or have relatives who occupy important public positions; or if babies or young children are the victims.
Thomas Hall, a member of one of Timaru’s elite families, was also the town’s most notorious murderer. His wife, Kate, inherited the estate of her wealthy stepfather, Captain Henry Cain, and then became mysteriously ill after her son was born, in mid-1886. When a visiting family member fell ill after drinking tea Hall had prepared for Kate, poisoning was suspected. Hall was arrested and found guilty of attempted murder and forgery. He was on the brink of bankruptcy and stood to gain from his wife’s will and two insurance policies.
After the trial, the body of Henry Cain was exhumed and was found to have been poisoned. Hall was convicted of Cain’s murder, but successfully appealed against a death sentence, perhaps because of his upper-class connections. After leaving prison in 1907, Hall received an annuity from his uncle, Sir John Hall, premier of New Zealand from 1879 to 1882.
Williamina (Minnie) Dean was the only woman hanged in New Zealand. She was sentenced to death in 1895 for the murder of 11-month-old Dorothy Edith Carter, whose body was buried in the garden of Dean’s home in Winton. The body of another baby, Eva Hornsby (1 month) and the skeleton of a small child were also found buried in the garden. Dean, an unregistered ‘baby farmer’ (who looked after unwanted children for pay), was caring for several other children at the time. Her trial highlighted the vulnerability of children born to unmarried mothers and the limited regulation of their care.
Lionel Terry shot Joe Kum Yung in Haining Street, Wellington, on 24 September 1905 as a protest against immigration by non-Europeans to New Zealand. He reported his crime at the nearest police station and handed over the revolver he had used. Terry made grandiose speeches at his trial about the need to rid the British Empire of ‘aliens’ and resisted suggestions that he was mentally ill.
Sentenced to life imprisonment on the grounds of insanity, Terry spent the rest of his life in prisons or secure units in Sunnyside and Seacliff mental hospitals. He was frequently involved in escape attempts and violent interactions with prisoners and prison guards, and continued to assert the political nature of his crime.
Discovery of the bodies of three newborn children on a small farm in Newlands in 1923 led to the arrest of Daniel Richard Cooper and his wife, Martha Elizabeth, in Wellington. Cooper (who ran a ‘health business’ that included illegal abortions and adoption arrangements) had already been arrested for criminal abortion. The combination of murder and abortion charges contributed to high public interest in the murder trial. Cooper’s wife’s defence lawyer argued that she was not responsible because her husband had forced her to collaborate with him, and she was acquitted. Daniel Richard Cooper was found guilty and hanged.
In the period after the Second World War there were some very significant murder trials. They included the 1954 trial of Pauline Parker and Juliet Hulme, teenagers charged with the murder of Parker’s mother; the wrongful conviction in 1971 of Waikato farmer, Arthur Allan Thomas for the murder of his neighbours; and John Barlow’s three murder trials of for the double killing of Eugene and Gene Thomas in 1994.
Pauline Parker (16) and Juliet Hulme (15) were convicted in 1954 of the murder of Pauline’s mother Honora, who received 45 blows to the head, hands and body in Victoria Park from half a brick wrapped in a lisle stocking. The girls said that she had fallen and hurt her head. Juliet, daughter of the rector of Canterbury University College, was about to leave New Zealand with her father to stay in South Africa, as her parents were separating. Pauline’s mother was seen as an impediment to Pauline accompanying Juliet when she left.
Pauline’s diary provided an account of their relationship, plans for the murder and a future in which the girls would write novels and pursue stardom in Hollywood. A defence of insanity was rejected. The girls were given indeterminate sentences in different prisons and released after five years. A book, a play and a Peter Jackson-directed movie, Heavenly creatures, present different interpretations of the relationship between the girls, the reasons for the murder, and the trial.
In 1971 Waikato farmer Arthur Allan Thomas was convicted of the 1970 murder of his neighbours Harvey and Jeanette Crewe at Pukekawa. The Crewes’ weighted bodies with bullet wounds had been discovered in the Waikato River three months after their disappearance. Mystery surrounded the identity of the person who fed Rochelle, the Crewes’ two-year-old daughter, discovered by her grandfather in her cot five days after her parents went missing.
Thomas protested his innocence and appealed his conviction in 1971. Granted a retrial, he was convicted again in 1973. Thomas served nine years of his sentence before being pardoned. A Royal commission of inquiry held over 64 days in 1980 found him innocent of the murders, and he was awarded almost a million dollars in compensation.
John Barlow was tried three times for the murder of father-and-son financiers Eugene and Gene Thomas, shot in their Wellington office building in 1994. Barlow, who had a loan from the Thomases, claimed that he went to the office for a meeting, found the bodies, panicked and departed with a CZ 27 pistol registered in his name, which he had earlier loaned to Eugene Thomas. The police found the pistol, .32-calibre ammunition and a cut-up silencer at a rubbish tip where Barlow dumped them the next day. However, the pistol had a .22-calibre barrel, while a .32-calibre gun had killed the Thomases. After two trials ended in hung juries, Barlow was convicted of murder in 1995. His appeal to the Privy Council was rejected in 2009, despite the finding that ‘unscientific and untenable’ FBI forensic evidence had been presented at the third trial.1
Mass murders (the killing of four or more people at one time) have been rare in New Zealand. Before 1990 there were only four mass murders, involving 20 victims in total. Six mass murders, with a total of 43 victims, occurred between 1990 and 1997.
In 1841 five people were killed on a Bay of Islands farm by Maketū Wharetōtara (aged about 16), the son of Ngāpuhi chief Ruhe. Maketū killed his employer Elizabeth Roberton, her two children, Thomas Bull, and Isabella Brind, the granddaughter of Ngāpuhi leader Rewa. Abuse by Bull, who worked with Maketū on Roberton’s farm, appears to have prompted these murders. Maketū’s father handed his son over to the authorities to avoid conflict with Rewa. He was convicted and hanged in 1842.
Five men were robbed and killed on the Maungatapu Track near Nelson in 1866 by members of the Burgess gang: Richard Burgess (also known as Hill), William (Phil) Levy, Thomas Noon (also known as Kelly) and Joseph Sullivan. After selling the gold they had stolen, the gang was arrested and Sullivan testified against the others. Burgess, Levy and Noon were found guilty and executed. Sullivan was sent to prison in Dunedin after being convicted of one of the murders. He was deported to England, but escaped to Australia and was imprisoned there before disappearing in 1876.
Four family members were killed near Te Kūiti in 1934 by 20-year-old Hēnare Hona. While being arrested for the murders, Hona also killed police constable Thomas Heeps with a .32 pistol. He then committed suicide.
In 1941 seven people were killed in Kōwhitirangi on the South Island’s West Coast by 41-year-old farmer Stanley Graham, who had refused to hand over his rifle to police as part of the war effort. Among the dead were police sergeant William Cooper, and constables Edward Best, Frederick Jordan and Percy Tulloch. Eleven days later Graham died in the bush from gunshot wounds inflicted by police and home guardsmen.
Thirteen people were killed in Aramoana in 1990 by 33-year-old David Gray, including police constable Stewart Guthrie. During a siege the next day, Gray was shot dead by police.
In 1992 in Paerātā, south of Auckland, 64-year-old Brian Schlaepfer murdered his wife, his three sons, the wife of one of his sons and a grandson. He then killed himself. Schlaepfer’s granddaughter Linda survived the killings by barricading herself in a bedroom.
Seven members of his family were killed in Masterton by 25-year-old Raymond Ratima in 1992, including three of his own children. Ratima and his wife were having problems in their relationship, and were living with her parents. He was sentenced to life imprisonment.
Five members of the Bain family were killed in Dunedin in 1994. In 1995 22-year-old David Bain, the only survivor, was convicted of murdering his mother, his father, his two sisters and his younger brother. He was sentenced to life imprisonment with a 16-year non-parole period.
From the start there was controversy over whether David was responsible or whether his father had killed the others and then shot himself. After an appeal to the Privy Council succeeded in 2007, there was a retrial in the Christchurch High Court and Bain was acquitted in 2009.
Six residents of the New Empire Hotel in Hamilton died when Alan Lory (41) set fire to the building in 1995. Lory was acquitted of murder but convicted of manslaughter and arson, and sentenced to life imprisonment.
22-year-old Stephen Anderson killed six people and wounded another eight at a ski lodge in Raurimu, south-east of Taumarunui, on 8 February 1997. Some of the dead were family and friends who had been invited to join the Anderson family for the weekend. Found to be legally insane, Anderson was committed to secure psychiatric care.
It is rare for people to kill more than once, but when they do, public pressure increases for bringing back capital punishment. At least 14 people with previous convictions for murder or manslaughter have killed again in New Zealand.
David Wayne Tamihere killed Auckland stripper Mary Barcham in 1972 by hitting her on the head with an air rifle, and was convicted of manslaughter. Tamihere was convicted of murdering Swedish tourists Heidi Paakkonen and Urban Hoglen on the Coromandel Peninsula in 1989, and was sentenced to life imprisonment.
In 1975 Dennis Luke and Rufus Marsh were convicted of kicking a 70-year-old pensioner, Taffy Williamson, to death in Wellington. Luke was convicted of murder and sentenced to life imprisonment, while Marsh was given seven years for manslaughter. In 1986, in a home invasion, Marsh beat and stabbed Diane Miller to death in her Wellington flat. Convicted of murder, he died in prison in 2010.
Luke also killed again. In 1992, while on parole for the Williamson murder, Luke and three Black Power associates murdered Crown witness Christopher Crean – who was to testify against three of them – in New Plymouth. Luke was sentenced to a second life term, with a 14-year minimum. In 2010 he remained in prison.
Graeme Burton stabbed lighting technician Neville Anderson to death outside a Wellington nightclub in 1992 and was sentenced to life imprisonment for murder. He was paroled in mid-2006. In January 2007 he murdered quad-biker Karl Kuchenbecker, and wounded Karl Holmes, Jeremy Simpson and Kate Rea in a random shooting. Burton received a life sentence with a 26-year non-parole period.
In 1972 Dean Wickliffe was convicted of shooting Wellington jeweller Paul Miet during a robbery. He was sentenced to life imprisonment for murder, but on appeal in 1986 the conviction was reduced to manslaughter. Wickliffe was re-sentenced to life imprisonment but was paroled the next year. In 1997 he was convicted of shooting gang member Richard Bluett in 1996, and for a second time he received a life sentence for murder. Following an appeal, he was re-tried and acquitted in 1999.
William Johansson and seven other men beat Benjamin Halaholo to death in 1995. Convicted of manslaughter, Johansson received a two-year suspended sentence and 10 months’ periodic detention. In 2002 he masterminded a robbery spree in Auckland during which pizza worker Marcus Doig and bank teller John Vaughan were fatally shot. Convicted of murder, Johansson was sentenced to life imprisonment with a 23-year minimum sentence.
Malcolm Francis killed his wife, Janet, in their Hastings home in 1983 and received a four-year sentence for manslaughter. In 2001 he killed his former partner, Wathanak Tea. Convicted of manslaughter, he was sentenced to 12 years’ imprisonment with a non-parole period of 12 years.
Robberies differ from burglaries in that they are thefts that involve the use or threat of violence. Robberies are divided into two principal types: simple robbery, which carries a maximum sentence of 10 years’ imprisonment; and aggravated robbery, which carries 14 years. Aggravated robbery is robbery committed by more than one person, or with a weapon, or where a victim is grievously injured.
Since the 1950s the incidence of robbery has grown exponentially. Robberies jumped sharply after 1970, reaching 1,833 in 1996 – 68 times more than the1950 total and 12 times more than in 1970. After this robbery numbers fell, but they began to rise again from 2004. The figure of 2,493 robberies for 2008 was 63% greater than that of 1999.
Increasing use of EFTPOS and credit cards has made robbery far less profitable than it was, and much-improved security – including security guards outside banks – has sharply reduced the chances of getaway. The majority of robberies involve minor heists. Large-scale robberies are vigorously investigated, with the perpetrators usually identified and sent to prison for lengthy periods. As a result, in the 1990s the professional robber began to disappear. Robbers were younger and less sophisticated, and the big hauls of the past – such as the $295,000 security van hold-up at an Auckland Foodtown supermarket in 1984 – were rare in the early 2000s.
As with other forms of violence, New Zealand has seen an increase not only in the incidence of robbery, but also in its seriousness. In the early 1960s, for example, robbery figures were less than 4% of the robbery rate in the early 2000s, and only about 10% were aggravated robberies. By 2000 approximately 60% of all robberies were aggravated.
A woman encountered a man waving a handgun at her when he entered her home in the Hamilton suburb of Nawton in October 2009, demanding cigarettes and cash. He then fled the property and she phoned the police. Her children remained asleep throughout the incident.
Like other forms of violent crime, non-sexual assaults increased considerably after 1950. The number of recorded assaults in 1970 was more than seven times that of 1950. Between 1970 and 1980 recorded assaults increased by 70%, and they grew another 55% by 1990.
Like homicides, recorded assaults peaked in the mid-1990s. They reached 36,000, then stabilised and fell. After 1999, however, assault figures steadily increased, reaching an all-time high of 42,000 in 2008.
The seriousness of assaults has also increased. Since 1978, police figures for non-sexual assaults have been divided into three categories: minor (generally with a maximum of one year’s imprisonment or less), serious (with a maximum of three years or less) and grievous (with a maximum of up to 14 years).
In 1978 a third of all assaults were identified as ‘serious’ or ‘grievous’. By 2008 nearly two-thirds were listed under these headings. Serious assaults grew tenfold in that 30-year period; grievous assaults grew 44-fold.
Before 1985 most sexual assaults were divided into the major categories of rape (and attempted rape) and indecent assault. Rape carried a maximum of 14 years’ imprisonment; attempted rape carried 10 years and indecent assault seven years.
Sexual assault is often thought of as an attack by a stranger. However, interviews with 48 women who contacted police with a rape or sexual violation complaint between 1990 and 1994 found that 70% of the people responsible were known to the victims. Interviewer Jan Jordan commented that perpetrators included ‘spouses and ex-spouses, boyfriends, family members (including brothers-in-law, future fathers-in-law), neighbours, acquaintances (including friends of friends or of partners, co-residents, fellow party guests), and those with whom the woman may have had a professional relationship (such as a doctor, teacher, counsellor or masseuse)’.1
Rape became a significant public issue in the 1970s and politicians were lobbied by community groups like Rape Crisis to change the law and policing practices. Women's groups criticised the focus on the sexual history of complainants during rape trials, and police procedures that discouraged women from making rape complaints – including the stress of medical examinations by police surgeons. Feminists argued that rape victims often experienced a ‘double violation’ if they laid a complaint.2
In 1985 there was a major amendment to the Crimes Act 1961. Rape within marriage was now a crime, and the distinction between rape and other forms of sexual violence was reduced. The new law focused on ‘sexual violation’, which included rape, and ‘unlawful sexual connection’ (other forms of non-consensual sexual penetration or sexual–oral contact). Sexual violation carried a maximum sentence of 14 years, which was increased to 20 years in 1993. Issues relating to consent to sexual contact were also addressed in this legislation.
Comparison of sexual attack figures in the post-war era is complicated by legislative changes. Differences in recording methods following law changes in 1961 and 1985 also make long-term comparisons difficult.
The average number of rapes reported to the police each year has grown rapidly since the 1950s. Between 1950 and 1954 an average of 18 rapes were reported to the police each year. By the 1970s the average number of reported rapes was 253, and it was 330 before the 1985 law change took effect in 1986.
After this, police data is unreliable, but Statistics New Zealand figures show that reported rapes were stable between 1994 and 2004, averaging 475 a year. In the following four years they increased by 21%, to an average of 573 a year.
Malcolm Rewa had already spent four and a half years in prison for rape before embarking on over 20 sexual attacks on women between 1987 and 1996 – mainly late at night or just before dawn. Forensic evidence and a blood sample provided by Rewa’s father led police to suspect that Rewa was responsible for the rape and murder of Susan Burdett in Papatoetoe in March 1992 and the rape of a woman in Mt Eden in 1996. After a three-month trial for 24 rapes in 1998, Rewa was sentenced to preventive detention with a 22-year minimum parole period. In December 1998 he was found guilty of Burdett’s rape, but not of her murder. He received a 14-year concurrent sentence.
Rates of reported sexual attacks have also increased dramatically. There were 908 reported sexual attacks in 1978, increasing steeply to a peak of 3,222 in 1993. This data cannot be compared with data after 1997, as reported attacks which were identified after investigation as ‘no offence disclosed’ were removed from the record.
Between 1997 and 2008, the number of validated sexual attacks was relatively stable, averaging over 2,200 a year. However, it was estimated in the early 2000s that only about 10% of sexual assaults were reported to the police. A review of 1,955 sexual violation offences involving adults reported to the police between 1 July 2005 and 31 December 2007 concluded that 31% of all reported complaints led to prosecutions and 42% of these prosecutions resulted in a conviction. Thirty-four percent of the 1,955 complaints were classified as ‘no offence’ and of these, almost a quarter were defined as ‘false complaints’.3
Changes to the law in the 1980s made it easier to report sexual assault, and probably contributed to increased rates of reported offences in the late 1980s and early 1990s. There was also an increase in reports of sexual offences that had occurred some years before – nearly 60% all convictions for sexual offences recorded in 1997 were for incidents that occurred at least two years previously.
Sexual assault can affect people in different ways, depending on the circumstances of the assault and the relationship to the perpetrator. The impact can include increased fearfulness, lack of trust in personal relationships, loss of confidence, depression and anger.
Newbold, Greg. Crime in New Zealand. Palmerston North: Dunmore, 2000.
Newbold, Greg. ‘Gun control policy in New Zealand.’ New Zealand Sociology 12 no. 2 (1997): 183–212.
Newbold, Greg. The problem of prisons: corrections reform in New Zealand since 1840. Wellington: Dunmore, 2007.
Newbold, Greg, and Cross, J. ‘Domestic violence and pro-arrest policy.’ Social Policy Journal of New Zealand 33 (2008): 1–14.
Young, Sherwood. Guilty on the gallows: famous capital crimes of New Zealand. Wellington: Grantham House, 1998.
A report from the Ministry of Justice.
http://www.corrections.govt.nz
The website of the Corrections Department.
http://www.nzhistory.net.nz/category/tid/436
Stories of crime and punishment in New Zealand, from NZHistory.net.
A site with reports on high-profile criminal cases in New Zealand.
http://www.stats.govt.nz/reports/analytical-reports/crime-in-new-zealand.aspx
A report on crime statistics for 1994–2000, on the Statistics New Zealand website.
http://www.stats.govt.nz/reports/analytical-reports/crime-in-nz-96-05.aspx
A report on crime statistics for 1996–2005, on the Statistics New Zealand website.