As Eastern District Commander, she said the district's police were completely focused on preventing harm to the people in the communities under their jurisdiction, and on decreasing victimisation.
Police in Hawke's Bay were currently aligned to a number of key national strategies. These included an aim to reduce repeat offending, victimisation and fatal crashes among Mori through their Turning of the Tide initiative, and a Prevention First programme. Police were also part of the government-wide Safer Journeys strategy, launched to reduce and prevent road related trauma.
Police structures evolved to meet the needs of the community, and a greater emphasis had been placed on preventing and responding to serious and violent crime as well as child protection, young people and family violence, which remained the biggest risk areas for local communities.
As well as 417 sworn staff, over the past year the district had budgeted for an extra 15 staff working in child protection and violence prevention areas. This was higher than the district's previous staffing allocation, and the funding was above what Ms Venables said she was supposed to have.
Any claims of the police budget being frozen were wrong, she said. In the 2010/2011 financial year Ms Venables said she had received a total budget of $51.9m, and in the 2016/2017 year she had received a budget of $55.2m.
Police were also putting a great amount of investment in communities, she said, citing the $24 million combined investment into the revitalisation of Hastings and Napier police stations.
"The investment into the district has been phenomenal, because we do absolutely need it," she said. "Everything we do, we do for the people of Hawkes Bay."
When asked about a perceived lack of police presence, Ms Venables said officers were deployed where there was need.
"The community need to realise that every day, every police officer is coming into work to do a great job in their communities to keep them safe, and make the criminal fraternity accountable," she said.
However, Ms Venables said ensuring the safety of communities in Hawke's Bay was a combined effort, which involved other agencies, and organisations.
"We can't do it alone," she said. "If people want to be involved we'd be very grateful."