'We're getting slandered for bloody statistics'

The amount of moderate and serious crime being committed by deportees to New Zealand is much less than police warnings suggested.

It's also a lot less than Australia have been told it is. Official Information Act figures released to RNZ show just 13 percent of deportees have committed jailable offences in the last two years.

The police in briefing papers to the incoming Police Minister in February 2016 said they expected reoffending rates to be as high as 55 percent by early 2018.]

This warning was shortly after the government introduced the Returning Offenders Orders scheme that Corrections uses to manage the increased flow of deportees from Australia.

The Australian Police Federation just last month told federal MPs that the New Zealand police put the reoffending rate at 51 percent, adding this reinforced the importance of the tighter immigration laws "to the continued safety of the Australian community".

"We're getting slandered for bloody statistics that aren't even bloody correct," said Anthony Miller, who in 18 months since his deportation has built his Auckland scaffolding business Velocity so it now employs eight other deportees.

"It needs to change, mate, big time. Like, if you Google my name it comes up 'deportation' stuff like that, and because of these figures that come up we're just getting slandered."

Just over 800 deportees have arrived in the last two years, most from Australia, 560 of them managed by the Corrections Department under Returning Offenders Orders.

The OIA figures show just 73 of the 560 have reoffended, with 277 jailable offences between them; 220 of those are not for violent crimes.

Of those offences, 42 were violent crimes, while two were sex crimes and there were eight weapons offences.

The biggest number were dishonesty (73) and traffic (43) offences.

The portrayal of deportees as threatening hung over them, said Helen Murphy, who knows a lot of deportees personally, working for Prisoners Aid and Rehabilitation (PARS) in Christchurch.

"It creates the fear through the population. This has an awful effect on these people because they start to feel really bad about it."

The Australian Immigration Minister Peter Dutton regularly refers to immigration detainees as an ongoing criminal threat, and deserving of deportation or incarceration on remote Christmas Island.

John Polkinghorne, who is still looking for a job after arriving in Christchurch several weeks ago, admits to multiple convictions but has just one word for the reoffending warnings.

"Propaganda, you know, for the Australian Government, whatever the New Zealand Government has going on with them."

It can be a vicious cycle.

"Yeah hard, I'll be straight-up honest, I am dead-set considering that," he said of going back to committing crime to get by.

"And the longer I'm in this place, like, trying to get out of the mud that I'm stuck in, the easier it is."

There are gaps in the OIA figures: 267 deportees in the two years have not been monitored under Returning Offenders Orders so Corrections cannot track their reoffending rates.

The figures do not include non-imprisonable offending or minor traffic convictions. Another 26 deportees face charges on remand, 15 on violence charges.

The stream of deportees shows no sign of letting up, however. In the last month, Australia appears to have cut back on the cash and accommodation it gives each of them to resettle.

Ms Murphy said each deportee was now getting $250 instead of $300-700 and five nights in a motel paid for, instead of 14 nights.

Police defend forecast

The police are defending their forecast that deportees from Australia to New Zealand would commit high rates of crime once they got here.

There have been two sex crime convictions in two years, 42 for violent crime and eight for weapons offences; but overall 220 of the 277 offences were not for violent crime.

Police said the difference was their reoffending rate included non-jailable offending and minor traffic offences.

Police said New Zealand agencies were prepared for high reoffending rates given previous experience with deportees, and the fact that agencies may know significantly less about returnees from overseas.

"It is therefore difficult to predict what reoffending rates may be.

"It is positive that the rates of offending appear to be lower than these earlier cohorts, and that the rate of reoffending of returning prisoners appears to be lower than the reoffending rate of those returnees who were not supervised by probation."

The police forecast was only for deportees from Australia, while the Corrections figures were for all deportees - though most of those were from Australia.

Police also said the 2016 estimate was based on experience with deportees sent back before Australia began its immigration clampdown in late 2014.

The numbers

• 827 deportees have come in since Returning Offenders Orders were introduced in late 2015 to manage them
• 560 are under an Order, of which 73 have committed 277 jailable offences
• 220 of those were not violent crimes
• The most common offences were dishonesty (73) and traffic (43).
• 42 violent offences, and six drug crimes
• 267 deportees have not been under Returning Offenders Orders so Corrections cannot track their reoffending
• The figures do not include non-imprisonable offending or minor traffic convictions.
• Another 26 deportees face charges on remand, 15 on violence charges