Hard times see more murders, burglaries

File photo / Brett Phibbs

Murder and burglary rates have ticked up slightly in the past year - a faint sign of possible recession-related stress.

Murders rose by five, from 52 to 57, and burglaries increased by 3500 or 6 per cent, according to police statistics for the year to June. Overall reported crime increased by 3.7 per cent.

All figures reverse long-term declines in crime rates per person since the last major recession in the early 1990s, but only slightly - the murder and burglary rates are still below what they were two years ago and only about half of their historic peaks.

Police Assistant Commissioner Grant Nicholls said the burglary increase "could be correlated with the tough economic times".

"I'm not suggesting good people turn bad because of tough economic times, but I suspect those on the fringes may be tempted," he said.

"There are two issues there. In challenging economic times people who have a disposition towards crime anyway [may commit more crime], but there are still a lot of people who don't commit crime, so there is no excuse. I am not linking unemployment and crime."

The increase in overall reported crime was driven by police crackdowns on family violence and major drug rings, reflecting changing police priorities rather than changes in crime rates.

Violent and sexual offences coded as family-violence-related have jumped by almost 50 per cent in the past two years, from 20,743 to 30,447, while those coded as not related to family violence have been stable between 35,400 and 36,200.

Mr Nicholls said special training on domestic violence began several years ago and specialist family violence investigation teams were being rolled out in all districts progressively.

The statistics show steep increases in the past year for all kinds of drug offences - up 25 per cent for new drugs such as methamphetamine (P), up 26 per cent for cannabis and up 28 per cent for other drugs.

Mr Nicholls said this reflected joint operations with Customs such as a major $500,000 drug haul last September, and a nationwide cannabis hunt called Operation Kristy which led to the arrest of 1125 offenders between December and March.

He said there were signs that these efforts were succeeding.

"We are getting an indication that the purity of the methamphetamine is going down."

Another sign was that police busted only 116 P labs in the past year, well down from a peak of 211 in 2006.

Mr Nicholls said police were also giving high priority to alcohol, which was associated with about 30 per cent of all crimes.

Alcohol offences jumped by 17 per cent in the past year to 11,982, almost entirely due to people breaching liquor bans by drinking in public places.

ON THE WEB
police.govt.nz/service/statistics