Same Crime – Different Outcomes: Do Court Outcomes Differ Systematically by Ethnicity?
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Plum, Alexander
Neubert, Rosina
Chua, Serene
Turcu, Alexandra
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Commissioned Report
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New Zealand Policy Research Institute - Te Kāhui Rangahau Mana Taurite
Description
Māori are overrepresented in New Zealand’s criminal justice statistics; however, it is unclear to what extent differences in offending behaviour contribute to disparities in court outcomes. This study investigates whether sentencing outcomes still differ systematically between Māori and NZ Europeans in cases of almost identical offences. We focus on first-time drink-driving offenders, and a key design feature of our empirical identification strategy is that we control for alcohol readings, providing an objective measure of offence severity. Using Stats NZ’s Integrated Data Infrastructure (IDI), we analyse more than 10,000 convictions between 2008 and 2013, focusing on whether an offender’s highest sentence is a fine (the least severe and most common outcome) or a community-based sentence (a more serious penalty such as community service or supervision). To make Māori and NZ European offenders directly comparable and to ensure that any ethnic differences reflect sentencing practices rather than differences in offending history or case type, we restrict the sample to offenders who are directly comparable. Therefore, we limit the sample to adults (20-69 years) with no prior court appearances, who were prosecuted by police, and who pleaded guilty.
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Source
New Zealand Policy Research Institute - Te Kāhui Rangahau Mana Taurite, November 27, 2025. Retrieved from https://nzpri.aut.ac.nz/document-library
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