To report or not to report? Understanding the impacts of reporting decisions for family and sexual violence in Aotearoa New Zealand

Abstract

Most victims of family violence (FV) and sexual violence (SV) do not report their criminal victimisation to police, but instead their experiences remain part of the ‘dark figure of crime’, or the proportion of actual crimes committed that remain officially unrecorded. The gap between victimisation and reported victimisation has a number of broad consequences for the policies and practices of government. In this report we combine New Zealand Crime and Victims Survey (NZCVS) and other Integrated Data Infrastructure (IDI) data to consider two broad questions. First, what individual, community and offence-related factors predict non-reporting of FV and SV offences to Police (RQ1)? Second, is reporting or not associated with differences in wellbeing outcomes (RQ2)? Our analyses help to contextualise research and policy that relies on reported crime, and to identify areas where, as a result, reporting-associated policy responses may have potential shortcomings.