The Ministry of Justice is considering mobile courthouses to improve access to justice in remote areas. But here's what the data shows: in Bay of Plenty, the courts are already processing far fewer cases than at any point in nearly four decades.

In 2024, Bay of Plenty courts convicted 233,068 adults. That's the lowest figure since 1987, when the region was a fraction of its current size. You have to go back 37 years to find numbers this low. (Source: Ministry of Justice, adults-convicted-by-sentence)

Five years ago, in 2020, the same courts were convicting 246,728 adults. That's 13,660 fewer convictions in 2024. The drop isn't gradual drift, it's a sharp reversal. The region hit a peak in 2020, dipped to 233,324 in 2022, bounced back slightly to 241,384 in 2023, then fell again to this year's low.

This isn't a story about crime going up or down. Adult convictions measure what the justice system actually processes: guilty verdicts, plea deals, sentencing outcomes. Fewer convictions could mean fewer offences, fewer prosecutions, or courts resolving cases differently. But whatever the cause, the courts are dealing with substantially less volume than they were before COVID.

The timing matters. While politicians talk about being tough on crime and the justice system grapples with new challenges like AI and deepfakes, the actual caseload in one of New Zealand's fastest-growing regions is at a generational low.

Bay of Plenty's population has grown steadily over those 37 years. Tauranga alone has added tens of thousands of residents since the late 1980s. More people, fewer convictions. The rate per capita has fallen even more dramatically than the raw numbers suggest.

So what does this mean for mobile courthouses? If the goal is improving access to justice, the data suggests the problem isn't volume. Courts aren't overwhelmed. The issue is geographic: getting justice to people in isolated communities, not managing an explosion of cases.

The Bay of Plenty data tells a story that contradicts the loudest voices in the crime debate. Courts there aren't swamped. They're quieter than they've been since 1987. And if that pattern holds elsewhere, New Zealand's justice system might need different solutions than the ones politicians are selling.