Police have been criticised after information revealed almost half of reported hate crimes are being wrongly downgraded from a criminal offence, to either "incidents" -- in which no crime was committed -- or to lower level crimes.
Photo: RNZ / Samuel Rillstone
The police annual data quality report shows just 4 out of 10 hate crime complaints are being coded correctly.
Minority groups and justice campaigners say that's not good enough.
The police only began detailed recording of such crimes after the March 15th terror attacks.
Poto Williams is the Police Minister, and she spoke to Māni Dunlop.
