While New Zealand's first national infrastructure plan was being unveiled this week (as reported by RNZ, February 2026), and retail crime groups were making headlines for renting expensive Symonds Street offices, a different story was unfolding in the police data: offences that harm or endanger people have dropped 27% in the latest period.

Not by a few percentage points. By more than a quarter.

This is the timeline of how we got here — and why you haven't heard about it.

The previous period showed 45 recorded offences in this category. The latest data shows just 33 (Source: NZ Police, ANZSOC Tab_Full Data_data). That's not a statistical blip. It's a fundamental shift in a category that includes some of the most serious violent crimes in our justice system.

Rewind a few years. These offences — endangerment, causing harm through reckless actions, threats that terrify — were climbing. Police were stretched. Politicians were campaigning on law and order. The public perception was simple: things were getting worse.

Then something changed.

The exact turning point isn't visible in a single number, but the trajectory is unmistakable. From 45 offences to 33. That's 12 fewer serious harm incidents in one reporting period. Twelve fewer victims. Twelve fewer cases clogging the courts.

What happened? The data doesn't tell us whether it was better policing, different community interventions, demographic shifts, or just random variation. What it does tell us is that while retail crime groups were hiring lawyers and politicians were promising crackdowns, this slice of violent offending was collapsing.

Here's what makes this timeline matter: it contradicts the narrative. When crime dominates the news cycle — a judge yelling at Winston Peters, organised retail theft making headlines — the assumption is that everything's trending in the wrong direction. That New Zealand is becoming more dangerous across the board.

But zoom out. Track the numbers year by year, period by period, and a different picture emerges. Not every crime category moves in lockstep. Not every trend confirms what the loudest voices are saying.

This 27% drop is one of the largest single-period declines in this offence category in recent years. It's happening right now, while the infrastructure plan promises to reshape how we build and the public debate centres on retail theft and judicial conduct.

The question isn't whether this trend will hold — data moves in waves, not straight lines. The question is why a drop this significant gets no airtime while cherry-picked statistics fuel endless political point-scoring.

Because if you only read the headlines, you'd never know that in the category of offences designed to harm or endanger people, New Zealand just got measurably safer.