In 2004, New Zealand charged 9,151 people with robbery, extortion and related offences. Twenty years later, in 2024, that number was 9,039. We've come full circle.

Here's the story of how we got here.

For most of the 2000s and 2010s, robbery charges stayed relatively stable. The numbers bounced around, but there was no dramatic trend in either direction. Then COVID hit.

In 2020, charges sat at 11,571. Not alarming, but noticeably higher than the decade before. The following year, 2021, they climbed slightly to 11,781. By 2022, they'd eased back a touch to 11,541. Still elevated, but nothing that screamed crisis.

Then came 2023. Charges spiked to 12,687, the highest level in the entire 20-year dataset. That's when the conversation changed. Retail crime became a political battleground. Business owners spoke about ram raids and smash-and-grabs. The media ran story after story. Politicians promised crackdowns.

And then, quietly, the number fell off a cliff.

In 2024, robbery charges dropped to 9,039. That's a 28% decline in a single year. It's the steepest one-year fall in the dataset. It's also the lowest figure since 2004, back when New Zealand had 4 million people instead of 5.3 million.

You'd think that would be news. A record spike followed by a record drop. But the narrative hasn't caught up with the data. The political conversation is still stuck in 2023, when the numbers peaked.

What happened? We don't know for certain. The data doesn't explain itself. Maybe the crackdowns worked. Maybe retail security improved. Maybe the economic conditions that drove the 2023 spike eased. Maybe police changed how they classify or prioritise these offences.

What we do know is this: the story everyone's been telling about rising robbery doesn't match what the numbers show right now. The 2023 spike was real. But so is the 2024 crash.

Crime data gets weaponised. Politicians cite the numbers that suit their argument and ignore the rest. The full picture is messier. Robbery charges went up sharply, then came down sharply. Both things are true.

The question is whether the conversation will catch up to the data, or whether we'll keep arguing about a crisis that, at least by this measure, has already passed.

(Source: Stats NZ, remand-prisoners)