Here are two numbers from the same dataset that don't sit comfortably together. In 2022, remands for offences against justice procedures, government security and government operations came in at 1,701. Three years later, in 2025, the figure was 2,469 (Source: Stats NZ, remand-prisoners).

That's a 45% rise in three years. And it comes straight after a fall of almost the same size in the other direction: from 2,508 in 2017 down to 1,701 in 2022, a drop of 32%.

So which is the real trend? Both, and that's the point. This category has been on a rollercoaster that had nothing to do with people suddenly deciding to breach bail or obstruct officials more often.

Look at the full run. In 1998 the count was just 423. It climbed steadily for two decades, past 1,000 in 2004, past 2,000 in 2016, peaking at 2,508 in 2017. Then the direction flipped. Four straight years of decline took it to 1,956 in 2021 and 1,701 in 2022, the lowest since 2013.

Then it turned around again. 2023 was flat at 1,716. In 2024 it jumped to 2,337, the same figure as 2020. In 2025 it reached 2,469. Most of five years of decline was erased in two, and by 2025 the series had closed almost all of the remaining gap. It still sits 39 below the 2017 peak, so the old high hasn't been beaten. But the return trip took three years.

What makes this category worth watching is what's in it. These aren't burglaries or assaults. This is breaching bail, failing to appear, obstructing or resisting officials, offences against government security and government operations. It's the machinery of the justice system charging people for how they interact with the justice system. Which means the count is partly a measure of the system's own throughput and settings, not just of behaviour out in the world.

That's why the timing matters. The 2021 and 2022 dips line up with the period when court operations were disrupted and case volumes were being cleared slowly. The rebound lines up with the courts catching up. The most likely reading is that this series tracks how busy and how strict the system is at least as much as it tracks offending.

Which brings us to the government security part of the label. New Zealand government agencies are leaving doors open to hackers, according to a cyber security company speaking to RNZ. If you assumed the security half of this category was the thing driving the numbers up, the shape of the series says otherwise. A trend that moves in near-mirror-image swings of 32% down and 45% up over five and three years respectively is behaving like a court system, not like a threat landscape.

The honest alternative reading: this is a single combined category, and the data here doesn't break out justice procedures from government security, so it's possible a smaller component is moving differently from the whole. The 2025 figure is also the latest available, and recent years in justice series are sometimes revised. The swing is large enough that neither caveat changes the shape.

My view: anyone quoting either the 2022 low or the 2025 high on its own is telling you half a story.