Something strange is happening in New Zealand's community sentencing system. In 2019, judges handed down 90 community sentences marked as 'inadequate data available'. Last year, that number was 5,610.

That's not a typo. In five years, the number of community sentences where the court system can't properly categorise what's happening has increased sixty-fold.

Here's the contrast that should worry you: while the justice system races to digitise court records and boasts about data-driven sentencing, there's a growing black hole in the numbers. These aren't minor discrepancies. These are 5,610 people serving community-based sentences where something about their case or sentence type isn't being recorded properly.

The trajectory is stark. In 2018, there were 309 cases. The number dropped to 90 in 2019, then 93 in 2020. Then it exploded: 1,977 in 2022, and 5,610 in 2024. You have to go back to 1999 to find anything comparable to today's figure.

Think about what 'inadequate data' means in practice. Someone stands in front of a judge. They're sentenced to community detention, supervision, or community work. The sentence gets entered into the system. But something goes wrong. Maybe the sentence type isn't recorded. Maybe it's a combination the database can't handle. Maybe it's a data entry error that never gets fixed.

Whatever the reason, these aren't abstract numbers. They're real sentences being served by real people, and the justice system's official records can't tell you what's actually happening to them.

This matters for transparency. When politicians argue about whether community sentences work, they're looking at the same Stats NZ data. If nearly 6,000 sentences are being misfiled or miscategorised, how accurate is any conclusion drawn from that data?

It also matters for accountability. Community sentences are meant to be alternatives to prison: they're cheaper, they keep people connected to family and work, and research shows they reduce reoffending. But you can't evaluate whether they work if you can't track what you're doing.

The explosion since 2022 suggests something changed in how the courts record or report sentences. Maybe it's a software update. Maybe it's a policy shift. Maybe it's just overwhelmed court staff cutting corners.

But here's what we know for certain: the number of community sentences New Zealand can't properly account for is now eighteen times higher than it was in 2020. And nobody's talking about it.

(Source: Stats NZ, community-sentences)