New Ministry of Justice projections predict a dramatic gender shift in New Zealand’s prison population over the next decade, partly due to a proposed law that would increase penalties for theft.
While the total number of people in prison is expected to grow by around 35%, the number of women behind bars is forecast to jump by 63%, almost double the overall rate.
The government’s Crimes Amendment Bill seeks to introduce a new category of low-value theft committed in an “offensive, threatening, insulting or disorderly manner”.
The bill’s explanatory note makes the intention clear: it is designed to allow harsher penalties for “retail crime […] when the threshold for robbery is not met”.
Under current law, robbery requires stealing from a person using force, threats or intimidation. The new category blurs an important legal distinction because it covers conduct that is non-violent but would attract penalties closer to those used for violent crime.
If this bill becomes law, it will affect women disproportionately because theft is more commonly a charge that leads to women being put in remand prison.
Men are typically remanded for other offences than theft, so they are less likely to be affected by the proposed law.
Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith argues tougher penalties are needed to improve public safety. He maintains that prison numbers will fall once crime declines.
But his argument overlooks a crucial point. The policy intended to make the public safer may, in fact, make life far less safe for the children of the women who will be imprisoned for petty theft.
What happens to their daughters
Most women in prison are mothers. Expanding the use of imprisonment for minor offences is likely to expose a new generation of girls to preventable violence and trauma.
A national survey in the United States shows that girls face a 1-in-4 risk of childhood sexual abuse when they live with both biological parents. The risk for boys was 1-in-8.
Ministry of Justice data show very similar overall risk levels for New Zealand children in 2024.
When children live with their mother alone, the risk for girls increases to 1-in-3, and for boys to 1-in-4 because when fathers are absent, one layer of protection disappears. That is what happens when fathers are imprisoned.
New Zealand research estimates the mass incarceration of Māori men in the 1980s and 1990s – largely driven by Māori urbanisation, biased government policies and practices, and the youthfulness of the Māori population – likely exposed Māori girls to a 5.5 times greater risk of childhood sexual abuse compared with Pākehā girls.
The same mechanism now threatens to repeat itself – this time through the imprisonment of mothers.
But the effects are likely to be worse because children will either live with their father alone, with grandparents or in foster families. This increases the statistical risk of sexual assault for girls to an estimated 1-in-2 – a 43% increase in risk, compared to girls who live with their mothers alone.
The risk increases solely because of the living arrangement, which exposes children to a wider range of adults and less consistent supervision.
The Crimes Amendment Bill may reduce neither crime nor harm. Instead, it risks deepening both across generations.
The next generation will feel the impact
Many children may be handed over to Oranga Tamariki, the state agency responsible for their safety and protection.
But the number of children who experienced abuse and neglect in state care has increased again last year. The recent Royal Inquiry into Abuse in State Care showed how horrific these experiences can be and what long-term consequences they have.
When their mothers are incarcerated, children also face a greater risk of experiencing poverty, depression and self-harm.
They often show behavioural problems, including failing in school, fighting, stealing and substance abuse. In the New Zealand context, studies have shown that most incarcerated Māori women have lived through such layers of harm long before they enter the justice system. These experiences have often shaped the harm they later inflict on others.
The projected surge in women’s imprisonment is therefore not only a crisis for the women themselves. It is a crisis for their daughters – a generation of girls who will be exposed to significantly higher risks of harm simply because their mothers are behind bars.
If policymakers fail to consider these intergenerational effects, New Zealand risks repeating a pattern already documented in its recent history: using imprisonment to address social problems that ultimately deepen them, especially for Māori families.
