Homicide Victims Report 2021 and Historic NZ Murder Rate Report 1926-2021

Homicide Victims Report 2021 and Historic NZ Murder Rate Report 1926-2021

Date Published: 
June 2023

Homicide Victims Report 2021 (PDF 670KB)

A Summary of Statistics about Victims of Murder, Manslaughter, and Infanticide

Report at a glance:

  • Between 2007 – 2020 there were 1,005 people killed by homicide (i.e., murder and manslaughter offences).
  • Māori account for approximately a third of homicide victims.
  • Males represented 65 percent of all victims.
  • The lowest annual homicide figure of 46 was in 2017.
  • Around 7 out of 10 homicides were murders.
  • Of all family-linked homicide victims, 44% were male and 56% were female.
  • Around 16% of homicides were committed by a current or ex-partner – 74% of these victims were female.
  • Children under the age of five made up 10 percent of homicide victims.

Note: the report excludes road fatalities

Historic NZ Murder Rate Report 1926-2021 (PDF 166KB)

The table shows Murder offences collated from existing electronic and microfiche data from previous Police annual reports and crime statistics and the current statistics on Homicide Victims.