The Justice Minister says the hundreds of dangerous criminals breaching their Extended Supervision Orders aren't all out robbing banks.

More than 500 dangerous criminals subject to orders enabling authorities to strictly monitor them amid fears of reoffending within the community have breached their conditions in the last six years.

New figures from the Department of Corrections released under the Official Information Act to the New Zealand Herald reveal that of the criminals subject to Extended Supervision Orders since 2014, 510 have been charged with breaching their conditions.

ESOs are used to both monitor and manage the long-term risk posed by offenders who authorities believe are a high risk of reoffending.

If Corrections holds concerns over any offender they can apply to the courts for an order.

They can be in place for up to 10 years at a time and conditions can be imposed specific to the offender to allow authorities to closely supervise them.

Corrections confirmed that this year alone 275 orders are in place and 89 offenders - just under a third - have breached their conditions.

Andrew Little told Mike Hosking it doesn't take much to break the rules.

"There's a hair trigger on them. These are behaviour modification devices, get people to change their behaviour, not go to unsafe places and not to behave in unsafe ways. So no one has necessarily been put at risk."