Auckland City Police say there’s good reason to celebrate positive results in the 2002-03 fiscal year statistics released today.
District Commander, Superintendent Howard Broad, said he was pleased with the turnaround on the previous year’s results.
"While total recorded crime for the district increased by two percent, once the annual population growth of 1.6 per cent and a large number of crimes recorded as a result of proactive Police work have been factored out, the City’s crime rate has dropped substantially," Mr Broad said.
"One of the most heartening signs of the results of proactive policing is the five per cent increase in clearances of crime.
"Most of these clearances were due to successful prosecutions for violent offending, dishonesty and, notably, detection of bail breaches (358 to 764, up 113 per cent) and by-law breaches. The latter mostly related to the inner city liquor ban (122 to 563 up 361per cent)."
Violence
Crimes in the violence category fell by one per cent. Homicides dropped from eight to five. Grievous assaults - those involving serious injury -- dropped by one per cent, in line with the overall trends.
There were marked declines in serious and minor assaults -- down by 10 and 11per cent respectively.
"There were 309 fewer victims of those types of assault," Mr Broad said. "The drop occurred across the district and I believe the district’s work with licensees around the CBD, combined with the liquor ban, is having an effect in the CBD and in people’s homes.
"It’s pleasing to see these policies are working and it has to be said that the very positive work undertaken by the Auckland City Council during the past year has been an integral part of the success."
Five per cent more violent offences were resolved in the 2002/03 year than in the preceding one.
"Our intelligence led policing, targeted patrols - around places, events and times of high risk -- ensure our resources are used effectively and are tactics supported by the staff," Mr Broad said.
He said the main areas requiring attention were in the kidnapping/abduction (up 23 to 41 offences) category, intimidations/threats (up by 246 offences or 11 per cent) and the increase in robbery (eight per cent - increase of 32 offences).
"We are building our responsiveness to a number of minority communities and we believe this will result in crime reductions in the coming years.
"In the current financial year we will continue to focus on alcohol, methamphetamine, and high risk offenders and victims."
Sexual Crimes
There were six per cent more crimes in this category, which Mr Broad attributes to increases in offending related to prostitution which were detected before the law change and as part of operations targeting other offences. Without these records the category would have declined by more than four per cent.
Dishonesty
The dishonesty category was massively skewed to the tune of four per cent by two offenders who, between them, accounted for 1,200 individual fraud offences. Burglary reports were held to the previous year’s level and car conversion fell by nine per cent. Thefts dropped by three per cent and thefts from cars were a major contributor to this result, declining 11 per cent.
"I am particularly pleased about the car crime result," Mr Broad said.
"A number of factors have contributed, including the intelligence-led approach to hotspot locations -- particularly carparks about the central city.
"Our work with young people late at night in the CBD is also having a positive effect, and the crack down on alcohol abuse in and around the city also appears to be having a positive influence on car crime.
"We cannot ignore the continued targeting of drinking drivers in and around the CBD over the last year which is also a major deterrent to car thieves."