. This is shown by the following pieces of
evidence:

(_a_) The office bearers of one Church gave to the Committee
particulars of several recent cases which had come to their notice
in the ordinary course of their social welfare work (two of them
girls who had become pregnant before their sixteenth birthdays).
These were cases which had not been investigated by the police. It
was also the conclusion of these Church officers that the cases
which had been revealed to them were far outnumbered by those
which were not so revealed.

(_b_) It was quite obvious to the police officials who made the
investigations in July that no useful purpose would be served by
extending their inquiries further.

=(2) Unreliability of Available Statistics for Comparative Purposes=

The previous section was written to show the difficulty of obtaining a
comparison between vice at one period and that at another. This section
is to indicate the difficulties which arise in making comparisons (even
when figures are available) between different sections of the people at
different times and between different groups of people.

_(a) Sexual Crime Among Adults_

No inference can be drawn from any comparisons between sexual crime of
adults and sexual misbehaviour among children. The Committee did,
however, examine the statistics of sexual crime in New Zealand to see
if there was any marked increase which might throw light upon the
conduct of children. From the annual reports which had been submitted by
succeeding Commissioners of Police it collated the figures of sexual
crime. The table as prepared is set out in Appendix A to this report. A
perusal of that table will show that the increase of sexual crime in the
years 1920-1953 is not any greater than might reasonably have been
expected having regard to the increase in population. In other words,
the rate has remained constant. But the great increase in the number of
indecent assaults on females (from 175 in 1952 to 311 in 1953) did call
for special investigation. At the request of the Committee, these
figures were broken down into the several districts in which the crimes
had occurred and, as a result, it appeared that there had been an
astonishingly big increase in the Auckland district. The Committee has
had two separate explanations of this. In the first place, it was
explained that the apparent increase was due to a change in the method
of compiling the returns in Auckl