Burgled? I'll just put you on hold

When Tessa Bowyer rang police after her car was broken into, they told her not to bother reporting it unless she needed to for insurance.

Renee Crowhurst was lucky - police sent someone around to dust her car for fingerprints after a break-in - but it took three days by which time the evidence had long since evaporated.
Karin Baynes had to wait four days for police to look for fingerprints after her home was burgled.

Six years after the Labour Government pledged to cut response times to 24 hours, police are still failing many victims of theft crimes. In the year to June, police were not attending one in five burglaries within a day of them being reported, despite the crucial eight-hour window for collecting fingerprint evidence. For every five people who reported a burglary, one had to wait more than three weeks to get any feedback from police on what, if anything, was happening with their case.

Police Association head Greg O'Connor says the gaps are horrific. "The police are totally stretched at the front line. Where-ever you look in Auckland and right around the country, we are not delivering.

"If the public knew what we were not doing, they would be very worried."

Victims of crime who spoke to the Herald on Sunday are furious: they say police are being pushed into revenue-gathering traffic exercises at the expense of real policing. Don Fisher, a policeman for 25 years and recently a victim of theft, is outraged. "I can't believe something I worked for, something I was so proud of, has turned around to being so dogmatic," he says.

The building manager of Auckland's Uptown Apartments, where dairy owner Bhagubhai Vaghela was shot and killed last June, says it took police two months to contact him after the theft of security cameras at the building. "It's their focus on traffic," he says. "It's their allocation of staff. The message they give to the public is 'don't bother'. No wonder the crime statistics are going down - no-one bothers reporting anymore."

Public confidence in the police has plummeted after a series of PR disasters - rape trials, porn on staff computers, 111 botch-ups - but it is not just high-profile cases which have angered the public. Hard questions need to be asked.

Is it reasonable for a victim of theft to wait three days for police to show up? Will zero tolerance of non-violent crime help tackle New Zealand's high violent crime statistics? And are we giving those paid to protect us the resources they need to do just that?

Minister of Police Annette King says: "Everyone would like a response from police now. That's not going to happen".

Not exactly rousing talk. But it's a tricky subject, she says. In an ideal world, there'd be a police officer at every door but there are simply not enough resources to treat every crime in every area with the same urgency.

King won't say what she thinks is a reasonable time to wait for police to attend a burglary, but says telling people not to bother reporting is not good enough.

Not that police will necessarily be able to investigate the crime - but at least, she says, lodging complaints will help provide an accurate picture of what crime is going on.

Acting Police Commissioner Steve Long says most complaints are dealt with "in a timely way" but acknowledges police are stretched. In the grip of a rising population, spiralling crime rates, traffic issues in the bigger cities and, of course, funding problems, he admits there are some "service difficulties" at the "lower end" of offending.

"I don't minimise the hurt that people have if you get your car broken into or if you have a burglary. But weigh that up against a woman who is saying 'if you don't get here now, I'll be killed'. We have to do that, and it's hard."

That police are merely revenue gatherers for government is a common criticism, and one King and Long rile against.

King cites a falling number of tickets issued and fines collected as proof of the opposite.

"There are no quotas for revenue gathering. That's one of the big myths. My utopia would be that we didn't have to gather revenue from fines because we didn't have to worry about people breaking the law."

For Long, who says the deal between the police and government is that 20 per cent of police resources are dedicated to traffic and roading matters, the issue is almost impossibly subjective.

"For every person who believes police focus too much on traffic crimes, there's a person who lost their mother in an horrific car crash. We have to be very steady and careful in managing this as best we can."

And while the public may see "steady" as really meaning inaction, Scott Optican, associate professor of criminal procedure at Auckland University, agrees. "I'm not trying to be disparaging of the public, but the same public that wants a five-minute response time doesn't want an increase in their taxes to pay for more police, or wants the money to go to schools and hospitals instead.

"If you want better policing, what are you prepared to sacrifice? Do you want to pay more taxes or take money away from schools? Is it worth spending $2m to decrease crime by 2 per cent?"

The sacrifices are not merely financial: in the United Kingdom it was decided that close-circuit cameras on every corner would help reduce crime. The cost was the public's right to privacy.

Those issues, says Optican, are complex and weighty, and often lost in an area too often politicised and sensationalised. But there is little question that police need more resources; so said 96 per cent of police officers questioned in a recent Police Association survey. Even front-line police, once too scared to speak out of rank, are now challenging how the system is working.

Last week, the Police Association's northern regional head Mark Leys said those at the coal-face felt hamstrung as the calls piled in but officers sat in stations unable to attend them due to a lack of cars.

Mrs King says the government is responding with its promise of 1000 sworn and 250 non-sworn officers being recruited into the force over the next three years. They'll be shared around the hot spots and in rural areas, and 250 will go into community policing. Of course, she says, difficulties in finding enough fit, keen and willing recruits doesn't make it easier: these are the days when Corrections, the Defence Force and "who knows who else" are fishing in the same employee pool. But she is resolute: "I'm not going to accept that 1000 more are not going to make a big difference."

Others aren't convinced. Long doesn't like the term "plugging the gaps", but he says of the new recruits: "It will help us to manage some of these problems but I have to be absolutely realistic. It will help us keep up with the population growth."

Whether numbers alone will improve police response is a key question. Cities such as Indianapolis and San Jose have been successful in reducing crime despite having the lowest per-capita numbers of police officers of the United States' 25 biggest cities.

It comes down to issues such as research, says King. The Ministry is upping its analysis of crime to establish where it is taking place, the times of day, the year - in order to work out where to focus. It's also about communities. "It's not just more police or more money. It's how you utilise them. And the community can help or hinder. Police can't do it on their own," says King.

Optican agrees: "Why do you think you have no responsibility for your own security?

"Police are not there to provide perfect security. It doesn't exist anyway. Police are there to provide security, maintain order, to respond to criminal offending and to act in a counselling role if need be."

When it comes to property crimes, there are ways the public can prevent crime and minimise the harm - burglar alarms, deadlocks, insurance - so some argue it's understandable police give them less priority."

King says a planned re-write of the outdated and much-amended Crime Act, which after 50 years in a fast-changing world has "bits of sticking plaster all over it", will allow public feedback as to where priorities should lie. Community policing is also something she is focusing on - as is crime prevention rather than reaction to crime.

"The truth is we can always do better. I think you can do something about it. But after the event is too late."

- HERALD ON SUNDAY