South Auckland sets crime record
South Auckland has been described as the criminal hell hole of New Zealand.
3 News can now reveal some of the most serious offences, such as murder, are at record levels.
But tonight, it’s a good record.
In the last two years, there were nearly 50 homicides in Counties-Manukau; so far this year, there’s only been one.
The region now has an extra 245 staff, meaning numerous police, many armed, are on the scene within minutes.
So homicides have gone from one a fortnight to one in six months.
Must be a coincidence with the extra police resources, right?
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Tags: law & order
June 20th, 2010 at 2:33 pm
There was an hilarious exchange during Question Time the other day. I think it was Old Yeller who asked Judith Collins if she was going to continue ‘stripping policemen’ from somewhere or other and I watched as Minister Collins fought to contain herself.
I was expecting to hear “Mr Speaker, stripping policemen is not an experience I can recall but no doubt that member can enlighten the house as to the advisable method.”
Instead there was some boring exposition on staff numbers.
June 20th, 2010 at 2:42 pm
It must be what make Auckland the World’s most liveable city. Pffffffffffffffft!
June 20th, 2010 at 2:48 pm
It’s quite an eye-opener that the addition of 245 staff could have such a dramatic impact.
It particularly allows us to gain some idea of what the cost is, in terms of increased crime, of having hundreds of fully trained personnel stuck behind radar-guns all day, flashing people doing 61 in a 50kph area…..
June 20th, 2010 at 3:07 pm
Don’t you mean 51 in a 50k area?
No surprise the murder rate has gone down now that Helen’s gone. Begs the question, how many were forced suicides?
And the exchange in the house was about the Bay Of Plenty and It was reported that Stevie “noboy” Cadwick was the aligator.
Of course the result of this is the we won’t need so many prisons and those jerry can jails will be sufficient for those that wish to stay.
June 20th, 2010 at 3:20 pm
The South Auckland murder rate was high and people took their own lives because Clark was the PM, really?.
June 20th, 2010 at 3:24 pm
“It must be what make Auckland the World’s most liveable city. Pffffffffffffffft!”
Yeah, because crime in most first world countries is non-existent, right?
June 20th, 2010 at 3:50 pm
The money saved in not having to put people in prison should pay for the extra coppers – it’s about $50k per year to keep a prisoner behind bars, say average 12 years in jail for murder, and if there’s 49 less murders per six months that’s 49*$50k*12 years=$29.4 million per six months or $58.8 million per year saved in prison costs.
245 cops at 100k per year (and I know they aren’t paid anywhere near that, but $100k is a nice round number, and it’s probably close to the actual cost of having them there once training and equipment is included) is $24.5 million per year leaving savings of $34.3 million to be spent somewhere else – faster police cars, an extra helicopter, whatever. On top of that there’s less time spent investigating the murders, meaning that cops will have more time to spend on less serious crime such as burglary.
That is before you start taking into account the “social costs” of crime and the lost revenue that the government may or may not have recieved from net taxpayers who are incarcerated.
I see this as a big win. Keep it up.
June 20th, 2010 at 3:55 pm
Apologies I misread the question. There was an average of 12.5 murders per six months (50 in two years, damn media) so that alters my calculation a bit, so now we’re talking 11.5 murders per six months reduction, meaning savings of $6.9M per six months or $13.8M per year. It still goes a long way towards paying for the extra police.
Add to that the reduction of the monies spent on legal aid and the court costs of a trial, and we are probably still ahead. Just not as much as I thought.
June 20th, 2010 at 3:58 pm
The region now has an extra 245 staff,
Would be curious to know how much of that are constables and detectives and the like. I know they need support staff, but still.
[DPF: My understanding is that the 300 extra Police for the region were all going to be front line staff]
June 20th, 2010 at 4:35 pm
Oh come on guys, everyone knows there has been no full moons since the National Socialists took office, just ask Annette.
June 20th, 2010 at 4:52 pm
Not only m,ore cops, but better and more energetic cops. You actually see them in the street doind cop things other than getting money to keep Labour Ministers in their accustomed style.
June 20th, 2010 at 4:53 pm
I will reserve my opinion until I hear what Clayton has to say .. a very astute man is plughead.
I see a bloke in the HOS has dammed the claim from the Police that the zero tolerance is the reason for the low death toll during the Queens Birthday weekend .. good on him. To say a person who gets up to 106km on the open road is a danger was absolute rubbish and they know that.
I want to know how much Police time was wasted investigating Wussell Normans assault on the Chinese delegation
June 20th, 2010 at 4:54 pm
What about a small tactical nuclear bomb?
June 20th, 2010 at 5:09 pm
Good work. Increased probability of getting caught + increased chance of long sentence in butt-bang central = lower crime rate. Even crims can see that’s a losing combination for them…
June 20th, 2010 at 5:26 pm
As I recall Cosgrove was questioning the wisdom of increasing the police numbers in Manukau at the expense of reducing police numbers in the Hutt. Collins replied that during the Labour government police numbers in Manukau were so low as to require the police to fly in officers from all over the country (including the Hutt) whenever there was a serious crime. Her alternative solution appears to be effective.
June 20th, 2010 at 5:39 pm
Now all we need is 250 more welphare phraud officers
..eh..?
June 20th, 2010 at 6:07 pm
Actually I’m suspicious, I doubt that extra police have much of an impact on homicide, at least directly. Maybe there is an indirect “broken windows” effect, but most probably a statistical blip in the most part. Mostly because most people when they murder don’t do so in a calculating way, it tends to be a “crime of passion”, a moment of intense anger. I don’t doubt crime can be deterred by the threat of being caught, but most murderers are caught anyway.
June 20th, 2010 at 6:26 pm
I agree with Ed, the murder rate is unlikely to be affected by the number of police, unless those police are catching more would-be murderers, however even that reason is doubtful as the sentencing judges just let them go. Unless they actually murder someone, in which case they go to prison for about three years.
June 20th, 2010 at 6:32 pm
A fundamental factor to recognise here is that the national education gap between European, Asian, Pacific and Maori student achievement is finally closing.
Clearly this is having an influence on overall crime in South Auckland?
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10637215
June 20th, 2010 at 7:56 pm
Must be a coincidence with the extra police resources, right?
Yes. I think the phrase you are after is post hoc ergo proper hoc.
For a start approximately 50% of murders are domestic violence incidents. The that’s not ok campaign would have more effect (if any) on that than any extra police.
Majority of all murders are heat of passion – unless a policeman is standing right there at the time pretty hard to see how extra numbers would effect that.
I guess there could be a flow on effect in terms of the detection and prosecution of less serious crimes reducing the overall crime rate and therefore (arguably) murders.
But the reality is that extra police may assist in the detection and resolution of murders but there is absolutely no way that you can rationally claim 245 extra police have reduced a murder rate from one a fortnight to one every six months.
June 20th, 2010 at 8:23 pm
Yep, I sometimes wonder how DPF can sell his services as a statistician at the same time he uses his blog to back “Crusher” and her ilk by conflating statistics. Post hoc ergo propter hoc indeed, GPT1.
The interesting figures would be those for “minor” crime… the stuff that doesn’t make headlines but affects far more people. And often is virtually ignored by police, citing lack of manpower. Things like burglaries, vandalism, thefts from cars, vehicle theft etc etc.
I suspect they might have reduced because, as Put it Away says, most criminals who commit their crimes in a rational frame of mind do calculate their chances of getting caught.
Sadly, only on TV crime shows and in very few real life cases do murderers act with cold rationality. More often they’re “seeing red” at the time, and no threat of punishment, or numbers of police, will make any difference.
June 20th, 2010 at 8:39 pm
Good points you lot. There’s a bit released by the police in April:
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/AK1004/S00019.htm
Still doesn’t help with figuring out why there are less murders but.
June 20th, 2010 at 9:08 pm
These figures are purely a result of the repeal of s 59.
It’s what Sue Bradford was telling us all along.
June 20th, 2010 at 9:23 pm
Its the effect of the sun and the moon or the murders are being kind enough to move and dump the bodies in another jurisdiction.
June 20th, 2010 at 9:40 pm
It is a fact that murders are generally of one person by another person they already know. In NZ a large proportion are domestic. Could be that police are being more proactive in dealing with domestic violence and enforcing protection orders.
June 20th, 2010 at 10:48 pm
South Auckland must be getting into the community spirit of not shitting in ones own backyard… when they have the rest of Auckland and NZ to shit in.
June 21st, 2010 at 3:12 am
I’d like to see the correlation with attempted murder or assault in general. It’s probably more a case of the cops now getting to the crime scene before the critical amount of blood has drained from a victim and getting them to hospital in time.
June 21st, 2010 at 8:25 am
Could be that police are being more proactive in dealing with domestic violence and enforcing protection orders.
Well that would fit with the ‘increase in reporting of domestic violence thanks-to-the-campaign’ theory. Looked for a bit of a breakdown of homicides but doesn’t appear they do that, publicly at least.
June 21st, 2010 at 9:02 am
I suspect there is a statistical blip, but much of this could be put down less to there being “extra” police as much as it’s that the police force is no longer stretched and lurching from crisis to crisis.
June 21st, 2010 at 11:56 am
***”What we need is an accelerated closing of the gap. Even if it goes along this trend [of the past five years] you are still looking at putting two or three more generations through school before you come anywhere near getting those equivalent pass rates, so you have generations of kids who are being wasted to the country.***
Focussing on closing gaps makes about as much sense as expecting more asian guys in the 100 metre finals. Groups evolved in different environments so have different average traits.
Freakanomics author Steven Levitt identified increased police numbers as a major factor in reducing crime in the 90′s (the others being increased abortion of children to poor & teen mothers, increased sentences & reduction in crack cocaine).
Levitt, Steven D. (Winter 2004). “Understanding Why Crime Fell in the 1990s: Four Factors that Explain the Decline and Six that Do Not” (PDF). Journal of Economic Perspectives 18: 163–190.
http://pricetheory.uchicago.edu/levitt/Papers/LevittUnderstandingWhyCrime2004.pdf
June 21st, 2010 at 1:33 pm
SPOT THE DIFFERENCE:
DPF on Queens’ Birthday Weekend sensationally-low road toll:
( http://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2010/06/editorials_8_june_2010.html )
DPF on sensationally-low Sth Akl murder rates: