KEY POINTS:
The Government's crime reduction strategy is the same as it was six years ago, despite a hard-hitting report finding it "no longer fit for purpose".
The strategy sets out seven priority areas such as family violence or youth offending that are to be targeted through "whole-of-Government" action.
National calls it "thin air" and last night said the strategy would be scrapped if it became the Government.
The strategy was introduced in 2002 and has stayed in place despite being found to be failing in an independent "stocktake report" the Ministry of Justice commissioned in 2006.
The Herald has obtained the report, by British crime prevention consultant Dr Sohail Husain. It said the strategy "was not effectively giving strategic direction to crime-reduction activity".
Dr Husain said if the Government took no action it would be "ignoring an opportunity to improve service in an area of significant public concern" and be "poorly positioned to respond to changes in national or international conditions that create upward pressure on trends [such as economic downturn]".
He said that when the strategy was developed in 2001 it was meant to be an "overarching framework" but it was "debatable whether a strategy was ever properly formulated" and there was little evidence it had any impact.
He said there was "no definitive published strategy document", targets were not defined and it did not have a high enough profile.
The strategy's priority areas include family violence, general violence, serious traffic offending, youth offending, burglary, theft and organised crime.
Dr Husain found that any progress in the areas could not be attributed to the strategy, and any underachievement had not been corrected by it either.
The strategy was also criticised in a 2006 Treasury report, which found it lacked focus and needed tangible goals.
The Ministry of Justice yesterday said that while Dr Husain's report was acknowledged, it would not change the original strategy.
