Prisons NZ

Stats NZ's annual sentenced prisoner population (people held in prison as a result of a custodial sentence), by calendar year and the offence type of their sentence, from Department of Corrections data.

An annual count, not the number in prison on a given day (Corrections' prison muster), which is a different measure. Excludes people held on remand (not yet sentenced), who are a large and growing share of the prison population.

Survey results include crimes people report experiencing, whether or not they told Police. Court and prison counts describe later stages of the justice system and cover different groups of people.

Read the period beside each number before comparing it with another figure. A monthly observation, a quarterly result and a financial year cover different spans of time. The latest release can also revise earlier observations. The chart and downloads keep the published periods so you can check which figures are being compared. A change in prisons describes what happened during that period; it does not by itself explain why it happened or identify the effect of a government policy. Definitions and coverage matter as much as the size of a change.