A focus on reducing burglary, theft and organised crime in the past financial year has contributed to the North Shore/Waitakere Rodney Police District once again, having the lowest rate of recorded crime per head of population.
For the 2004/5 financial year ending in June 05, there were a total of 37,160 recorded offences compared to 39,688 for the previous year, a reduction of 6%. The District has also achieved once again, the highest resolution rate for all crime reported to the major metropolitan Districts in New Zealand.
District Commander, Superintendent Roger Carson, says, "The District is following the nationwide focus on a sustainable reduction of crime and crashes. This is being achieved through a better use of resources to reduce the risk of offending, better use of intelligence, an improved understanding of the criminal environment and greater responsiveness to community needs," says Superintendent Carson.
"Statistics is only part of the story, with another focus being to meet the expectations of the community as much as possible. Those expectations of Police include high standards of ethics, integrity and behaviour. I expect my staff, like Police in the rest of the country to be leaders in the community when it comes to maintaining public trust and confidence," says Superintendent Carson.
Recorded crime is down in all three Police Areas that make up the District. Significant achievements have also been realised in the Auckland Metro Road Policing environment for which the District is also responsible, and which includes the Motorways staff and Traffic Alcohol Group.
A key focus for the District has been to reduce the crime of burglary through improving response times which leads to more burglaries being solved and stopping those trying to make a living through breaking into people's houses. This has resulted in a very pleasing 14% reduction in recorded burglaries.
The figures
2003/4 2004/5 variance
Burglary 6050 5174 -14%
Car Conversion 2705 2633 -3%
Theft ex car 4428 4315 -3%
Superintendent Carson says, "It is especially pleasing that while North Shore, Waitakere and Rodney have some of the highest growth rates in the country, Police are still making reductions in recorded crime. This is by working smarter and using opportunities to reduce recorded crime especially through prevention, rather than being the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff," says Superintendent Carson.
Statistics New Zealand projects the population of the Auckland region will increase by 46% in the next 20 years. Increases in the population of more than 50 thousand are expected in North Shore, Rodney and Waitakere. Rodney will have the largest percentage increases of children in the population and is expected to have one of the largest increases in population for the country.
There were 39 fatalities in the 2004/05 financial year compared to 22 for the previous year. The increase in fatalities is due to two triple fatality crashes and a number of double fatalities.
"Those 39 fatalities are 39 reasons why we need to maintain an even higher visibility of Police on the road says Superintendent Carson.
Staff in the Motorways and Traffic Alcohol Group have formed the hub of combined operations as road policing units across Auckland have run early morning drink drive operations resulting in a high number of drunk drivers being stopped entering the motorway network.
"There are some very good results this year that have been produced by the sheer hard work of my staff, coupled with support from strategic partners throughout the District and from the community. The community themselves are often the eyes and ears of the police and I express my thanks to all those who have contributed for the fourth year in a row to achieving the lowest rate of offending in the country" says Superintendent Carson.