New Zealand Police issued 918 stalking and harassment notices and laid 140 charges in the first three months of the country’s new stalking law, according to figures released by police on Friday 18 September. The numbers run from 26 May, when stalking became a stand-alone criminal offence, to 31 August.
That works out to roughly ten formal police actions a day over a little more than 14 weeks, and it is the first public measure of how often the new powers are being used. Police noted the data is drawn from a live operational database and may change as records are updated.
The balance between the two numbers is the most telling part. Notices outnumber charges by more than six to one, which fits the way the law was designed. A notice can be served after a single incident, well before anyone could be prosecuted, and is meant to stop behaviour early rather than wait for it to escalate. A criminal charge needs at least two separate acts within two years.
Inspector Natasha Allan, the police’s Acting Director of Prevention, said “It has been encouraging to see the law being used to protect victims in our communities and hold offenders to account.” She added that people affected should know “they will be listened to, taken seriously, and supported”, and urged anyone experiencing stalking to report it.
Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith and Police Minister Mark Mitchell put out their own statement the same day describing the law as “highly successful”. Goldsmith said “These results demonstrate the tough new reality stalkers are facing – one where there are real consequences for their actions.” He said the behaviour had gone unpunished for too long and called the old situation “a gap in the law which made no sense.”
Mitchell thanked frontline officers, saying police had “swung into gear immediately to intervene, hold offenders to account, and help protect people who are subjected to this atrocious behaviour.”
Neither statement broke the figures down by region, by the relationship between the people involved, or by how many individuals the 140 charges relate to. One person can face more than one charge, so the number of people before the courts may be lower. Nor is there yet any information on how many notices were followed by further behaviour, which is the real test of whether the warning system works.
Before May, stalking was not an offence in its own right. Some of the behaviour could be dealt with under the Harassment Act 1997 or the Harmful Digital Communications Act, but each incident tended to be handled on its own, which often understated what victims were living through. The Ministry of Justice says the new offence focuses on patterns of behaviour “enabling earlier intervention before harm escalates” and carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison.
Under the law, stalking is a pattern of specified acts on at least two separate occasions within two years, carried out knowing the behaviour is likely to cause fear or distress. The list of specified acts is broad. It includes following, watching, loitering, tracking, recording, repeated contact, damaging property or pets, harming a person’s reputation or relationships, and publishing private identifying details online, a practice commonly called doxing. It covers acts done in person or through technology such as spyware, tracking apps, drones or artificial intelligence, and acts aimed at a victim’s family or workmates.
The notice is more than a warning letter. When the law took effect in May, Allan told RNZ that a notice “creates a legal presumption that the person is aware their behaviour is causing fear or distress.” If the person keeps going and ends up in court, it is then up to them to rebut that presumption. Police must also tell the victim before a notice is served and work through a safety plan with them.
A conviction reaches beyond a prison term. Anyone convicted of stalking in the previous ten years is disqualified from holding a firearms licence, stalking is now included in the Family Violence Act’s definition of psychological violence, and courts can treat stalking-related conduct as an aggravating factor when sentencing for other crimes, as 1News explained in May.
The push for the law went on for years, but the turning point was the 2022 murder of 21-year-old Auckland law student Farzana Yaqubi, who had made several reports to police about the man who later killed her. The Independent Police Conduct Authority later found multiple failings in how police responded to her concerns. In 2024 a petition signed by more than 20,000 people asked Parliament for a stalking law, and the bill passed in November 2025, taking effect six months later to allow time for training.
How common stalking is helps put 918 notices in context. Clinical psychologist Alan Underwood told 1News in May that about 20 percent of women and 10 percent of men will be stalked at some point. Police say around half of all stalking starts after the end of a relationship, though stalkers can also be strangers, acquaintances or family members. On those estimates, the cases reaching police are likely to be a small share of what is happening.
Advocates welcomed the law in May but warned that it would only be as good as its delivery. Leonie Morris, project lead for Aotearoa Free From Stalking at the Auckland Women’s Centre, told RNZ at the time that the law “has significant potential to make stalking victim-survivors and all our communities safer,” but that “its effectiveness will ultimately depend on how it is implemented and resourced by the state.” Constitutional lawyer Graeme Edgeler made a similar point, saying that if the law is to work “it will have to be through the police and courts taking stalking more seriously.”
The first three months suggest police are using the new tools in volume. Whether the 140 charges turn into convictions, and whether people who received notices stopped, will take longer to show up. Police said they will keep monitoring how the law is working with staff and partner agencies.
Anyone who thinks they are being stalked can call police on 105, use the online reporting form or visit a local station, and should call 111 if they are in immediate danger. Police have a factsheet for people being stalked, and our earlier report explains how the stalking offence works.
Do you think the new stalking law is working, and is ten police actions a day more or less than you expected? Share your view in the comments below.
This article was written by AI, briefed to report the facts, hopefully without some of the bias people bring to the job 🙂
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