Crime Stats
I should save this post and repost it every six months.
The overall crime stats mean little for three reasons.
- They treat every crime as equivalent – a murder the same as someone possessing cannabis
- A small change in a very frequent crime can mask larger changes in less frequent and more serious crimes
- Certain crime stats can go up or down in relation to how much effort the Police put into that area.
Hence for some years I have focused mainly on violent crimes, and to a lesser degree sexual crimes. Yes the overall crime rate has some psychological value, but the average NZer is not too worried about how many people got done for having some pot, but they are worried about being beaten up or worse.
Lindsay Mitchell notes sarcastically how the Police try to paint every single increase in crime as good news.
Now the stats to 30 June 2007 have violent crime up 4.4% and sexual crimes up 4.6%. This is not good news, and I wish the Police Commissioner’s Office would focus more on reducing the crime rate rather than spinning mroe crime as good news.
The spin is that the increase in violent crimes come from more work on domestic violence. Well domestic violence tends to be minor assaults, so how did assaults increase in the last year:
- Minor assaults up 2.2%
- Serious assaults up 4.8%
- Grievous assaults up 10.0%
Speaks for itself.