The Ministry of Justice is exploring mobile courthouses to deal with case backlogs and access to justice issues. But here's what the conviction data actually shows: courts in the Bay of Plenty are processing 13,660 fewer adult convictions than they were five years ago.

In 2024, Bay of Plenty courts convicted 233,068 adults. That's the lowest number since 1987 — 37 years ago. (Source: Ministry of Justice, adults-convicted-by-sentence)

This isn't a one-year blip. The numbers have been trending down for half a decade. In 2020, there were 246,728 convictions. By 2024, that figure had dropped to 233,068. That's a 5.5% decline in adults being convicted — even as politicians talk about getting tough on crime and court backlogs dominate headlines.

So what's happening? Either crime is genuinely falling in the Bay of Plenty, or cases aren't making it to conviction. Backlogs can cut both ways: they clog the system, but they also mean fewer cases resolved, fewer people sentenced, fewer convictions recorded.

The data shows something else: this decline isn't steady. Convictions bounced around between 2020 and 2023 — up one year, down the next — but the overall direction has been downward. In 2023, convictions ticked back up to 241,384. Then in 2024, they dropped again to 233,068. That's an 8,316 decline in a single year.

If you're looking at this data and thinking about mobile courthouses, the question becomes: what problem are we solving? If courts are already convicting fewer people than at any point in nearly four decades, is the issue really capacity? Or is it that cases are taking too long, plea deals are becoming more common, or prosecutors are being more selective about what goes to trial?

The Ministry of Justice hasn't released detailed breakdowns of why convictions are falling. But the raw numbers are clear: whatever is happening in the Bay of Plenty's justice system, it's resulting in fewer adults walking out of court with a conviction on their record than at any time since the late 1980s.

Mobile courthouses might improve access to justice. They might reduce delays. But if the goal is to increase convictions, the data suggests we're already at historic lows. The backlogs everyone's worried about? They're happening while courts are processing fewer convictions than they have in 37 years.