Homicide Victims Report 2020 and Historic NZ Murder Rate Report 1926-2020

Homicide Victims Report 2020 and Historic NZ Murder Rate Report 1926-2020

Date Published: 
September 2022

Homicide Victims Report 2020 (PDF 741KB)

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

Report at a glance:

  • Between 2007 – 2019 there were 939 people killed by homicide (ie 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, 43% were male and 57% were female.
  • Around 16% of homicides was committed by a current or ex-partner – 74% of victims were female.
  • Children under the age of five made up 11 percent of homicide victims.

Note: the report excludes road fatalities

Historic NZ Murder Rate Report 1926-2020 (PDF 169KB)

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.