Crime rates
I got sent this chart, and found it interesting. The high level of Maori offending is well known. What I hadn’t known previously was the vast difference between Asian and Indian offending. Often these are lumped together, but in this case I presume Asian has been defined to exclude Indian.
The Asian crime rate is under one third of the European crime rate, while the Indian rate is almost twice as high as the European rate, and five times higher than the Asian rate.
Of course the vast majority of all ethnic groups are law abiding. But the differences between Asian and Indian rates are worthy of analysis and explanation. In the category of sexual assaults and related offences, the rates per 100,000 are:
- Maori 59
- Indian 57
- Pasifika 44
- European 22
- Asian 8
I would not have thought, prior to being sent these charts, that the Indian sexual offending rate was almost the same as Maori, and higher than Pasifika. Now again 57 out of 100,000 means 99,943 are not. So the data isn’t a reason to stigmatise, but it is worth asking what can be done to lower these rates.