On 28 November 2014 New Zealand Police, in collaboration with Statistics New Zealand, began publishing a new
statistical collection on victims of crime – the New Zealand Recorded Crime Victims Statistics (NZ RCVS). This new
statistical collection is based on the equivalent Australian standard, managed by The National Crime Statistics Unit
(NCSU) within the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS). NZ RCVS data is available from July 2014 and will be published monthly from January 2015. These statistics provide new information about victims and ultimately a more complete picture of who is affected by crime in New Zealand.
This manual has been prepared by the NZ Police Statistical Services Unit (SSU) for users of NZ RCVS, to help them
understand and correctly interpret statistical information in this collection. It documents the classifications and counting
rules used in the collection. These give meaning to the data.
In April 2015 a related data set, the Recorded Crime Offenders Statistics (RCOS), will be launched which will complement the RCVS and will include crimes that do not have a clear victim such as drug offences. Use the link to the NZ Police website to read more about the RCVS data set and the Briefing notes (PDF). Any updates to the manual will be found here. The third link will take you to the Recorded Crime Victims Statistics table on the Statistics New Zealand website. Note: the statistics tables include a range of offences and victims of crime. Use the table with care to identify family violence offences and victims.