New weapon in crime battle

Total Security Management member William Allen (front), security company manager Bill Frost, Community Constable Jeff Phillips and Kaitaia Business Association committee member Raewyn Taffe.

Crime in Kaitaia will come under increased scrutiny when a partnership between police, the Kaitaia Business Association (KBA) and a non-profit security company funded by the Te Aupouri Maori Trust Board next week begins increased CCTV surveillance of the town.

The move is unique in New Zealand because the Total Security Management (TSM) firm set up to provide community input into Kaitaia crimefighting will carry out its CCTV watchdog role from a base in the Kaitaia Police Station.

TSM staff there watching images from up to 120 CCTV cameras around the town will have radio contact to alert police to any potential trouble or crimes they spot being committed in Kaitaia.

Kaitaia Community Constable Jeff Phillipps - who had a leading role in creating the new high-tech crackdown on crime - said there was a perception commercial security companies considered ending crime would harm their businesses, so Kaitaia's non-profit firm was better placed to stifle criminal activity.

"TSM is operating to have less victims and to show crime prevention works. It's definitely a positive project for police," he said.

Cameras inside the police station would monitor TSM staff watching CCTV coverage around Kaitaia.

TSM manager Bill Frost predicted the CCTV surveillance and 12 staff in the security firm's patrol division would in their first six months of operation increase reports of graffiti, loitering, drunkenness and similar behaviour.

In the following six months they were expected to reduce crime in the central business district and make Kaitaia a far safer place to live.

Mr Frost, 46, said: "You need to see crime in real time to stop it."

He began working in the security business after serving in the Navy and believes preventative intervention and education are the keys to reducing petty crime which boosts insurance premiums and other costs for victims.

The 12 uniformed frontline TSM staff, several of them with backgrounds in military services, would wear body cameras, which Mr Frost said was novel in the New Zealand security industry.

After a fortnight's training they would patrol in pairs and seek to engage with the young men causing much of Kaitaia's street crime, letting them know they were under surveillance rather than confronting and provoking them.

Covert operations would be carried out with hidden cameras to catch people taking dogs for fighting, follow up a Far North District Council proposal to combat illegal rubbish dumping or deal with other crime requiring a low-profile approach.

Once TSM had developed a model for success in Kaitaia it could consider expanding its operations to other centres, Mr Frost said.

Te Aupouri Maori Trust Board chief executive Lee West said the Make It Happen Te Hiku community report received by Social Development Minister Paula Bennett at a community hui in Kaitaia last year had been a clear call to provide services and outcomes wanted to improve peoples' lives.

"We thought security was a hub issue. The KBA was in the process of upgrading their CCTV cameras installed in the main street about eight years ago so we looked to partner with the business association and police to develop a plan to monitor the cameras," he said.

Mr West declined to specify the trust's financial input into TSM. He emphasised police and the KBA were contributing partners and while the trust board was funding initial costs the medium term plan was for the security company to become financially self-sustaining.

"We [the trust board] think it is a great initiative," he said.