In the 79 day period, police located and seized 29 firearms, but only recorded four cases properly. Photo / Sarah Ivey
In the 79 day period, police located and seized 29 firearms, but only recorded four cases properly. Photo / Sarah Ivey
New figures released by NZ Police show that less than 5 per cent of gun-related offences are being recorded correctly.
The report, published in the latest issue of the Police News magazine, looked into the disparity between reporting and recording of criminal incidents involving firearms in New Zealand.
The Police Strategy Group and the National Intelligence Centre collated data on every firearms related incident reported to the National Command and Coordination Centre between December 8, 2017, and February 25, 2018.
The internal investigation led by PSG manager Catherine Petrey and NIC research analyst Lana Lankevich found there were 86 incidents reported over 79 days, but only five were correctly recorded.
In that time, police located and seized 29 firearms, but only recorded four cases properly.
"The public and all licensed firearms owners all need to understand and know the level of risk, if that risk is to be mitigated appropriately.
"We must not wait until there is another tragedy," she said.
"We want to support the frontline with data, but we can't do that unless the information is provided correctly."
Petrey said Police National Headquarters is now on a mission to get all firearms data correctly captured and to educate staff about how to do that.
District and area commanders have been asked to reinforce the message to staff and police are putting together a learning video for districts.
Police Association president Chris Cahill said the findings prove that firearms are a major problem in New Zealand. Photo / Sarah Ivey
Police Association president Chris Cahill said the findings prove that firearms are a major problem in New Zealand.
"The Police Association was not surprised at all by the findings. We have been saying for years that we know there are more firearms in the community than are recorded officially by police," he said.
"We get notifications daily from our members finding firearms and ammunition during routine policing. We also know there are more illicit firearms in our community because in our 2017 survey of our members 12 per cent of constabulary reported being threatened with a firearm at least once in the previous 12 months.
"That represented a 38 per cent increase on the 2015 survey. On the front line the figure jumps to 21 per cent threatened at least once in the last year."
Cahill said the most reliable official figure for the number of firearms in New Zealand is now 21 years old.
"In his 1997 review of firearms, Sir Thomas Thorpe listed 230,000 licensed firearms owners and an estimated 1.1 million firearms. There has been no official update on that figure and yet we know about half a million firearms have been legally imported into NZ in the past 10 years."
Cahill said the misrecording of data is a "credibility issue" for police.
"It means that when media report on the official police statistics they are not reporting on accurate data and police has known about that for some time.
"That is also a problem for the association, when it knows through its members that there are significantly more firearms in the community than police figures to date.
"A lack of accurate data also makes policing unnecessarily more difficult if there is not sound knowledge of how many firearms there are in the community – legal and illicit."
Police Minister Stuart Nash urged all police who are attending any incident where there are firearms involved to enter it into the system. Photo / Paul Taylor
Police Minister Stuart Nash said he was surprised by the findings.
"Making decisions, you've got to have complete data, and the less data you have, the less robust your decisions are going to be.
"I would urge all police who are attending any incident where there are firearms involved, whether its stolen property or not, to enter it into the system," he said.
Nash said police had told him that firearms are becoming more prevalent in crime.
"I am concerned about police safety, there's no doubt about that."
Cahill said along with police officers being upskilled on how to correctly input the data, the association was also advocating for a registry of all firearms.
"Surely a small country that registers its cars, boats, dogs, births, deaths and marriages can co-operate on accounting for lethal weapons – who has them, who has on-sold them, who has lost them or had them stolen.
"These weapons would be far more traceable than is the case now, and we would gradually build a more definitive picture of New Zealand's hidden arsenal," Cahill said.
A Police spokesperson said violent crime offences caused by firearms has remained relatively low at around 1.4 per cent.
"Nevertheless, there has been an increase in presentation of firearms in commercial robberies and in drug related criminal activities."
The spokesperson said police had briefed Nash on the opportunity for improvements to the administration of the Arms Act but they were not advocating for registration of all firearms.
