A judge in Hamilton sentences someone to community work. Six months later, the Ministry of Justice tries to find out if they completed it. The answer: inadequate data available.

That happened 5,610 times last year. Not five times. Not five hundred. Five thousand, six hundred and ten community sentences where the system lost the thread.

Five years ago, this was rare. In 2019, just 90 community sentences fell into this black hole. Then something changed. In 2022, it jumped to 1,977. Now it's 5,610, the highest figure in 25 years (Source: Stats NZ, community-sentences).

Community sentences are meant to be an alternative to prison. They're supposed to work: offenders do unpaid work, attend programs, stay out of trouble. The public gets accountability without the cost of incarceration. But accountability requires knowing what actually happened.

We don't. Not for 5,610 sentences handed down in 2024.

This isn't a rounding error. It's not a few missing files. Between 2018 and 2024, the number of community sentences with inadequate data grew by 1,715%. Whatever system was tracking these sentences in 2019 has collapsed.

The timing matters. Community sentences have been under political scrutiny for years. Critics say they're too soft, that offenders don't complete them, that there's no follow-through. Supporters say they reduce reoffending and save taxpayer money. Both arguments require knowing what happens after sentencing.

Right now, for 5,610 sentences, we have no idea. Did the person complete their community work? Did they breach their conditions? Did they reoffend? The data doesn't say. It just says: inadequate.

This is the kind of number that should alarm everyone, regardless of politics. If you think community sentences work, you need the data to prove it. If you think they don't, you need the data to reform them. Either way, a justice system that can't track one in every few dozen sentences isn't functioning.

The trajectory is worse than the number. This isn't a sudden spike. It's been growing for six years, accelerating since 2022. Whatever broke, it's still broken. And nobody seems to be talking about it.

Five thousand, six hundred and ten sentences. Five thousand, six hundred and ten questions with no answer. That's not a data problem. That's a justice system losing track of itself.