For New Zealand, an overall drop, notice the drop in homocides, kind of shoots down your gun law theories for the rest of the world:
09 March 2004
By HAYDON DEWES
Though crime rates are down in most of New Zealand, Wellington has recorded the biggest increase with house burglaries and thefts from cars skyrocketing.
Police statistics for 2003, issued yesterday, show a 0.5 per cent rise in the total number of offences recorded nationally, from 440,129 in 2002 to 442,489, but offences per 10,000 population have dropped 1.2 per cent.
Police also solved 8075 more crimes than in 2002 – a jump from 41.9 per cent to 43.5 per cent.
Recorded sexual offences dropped 7.4 per cent compared with an increase of 12.8 per cent for the previous year.
Homicides dropped from 122 to 104. There were 20 fewer murders – 46 last year compared with 66 in 2002.
Police put 200 clandestine methamphetamine laboratories out of action last year as against 147 in 2002.
Drugs and antisocial crimes rose 6.2 per cent, with Sale of Liquor Act offences soaring 138.4 per cent, from 1801 to 4293, primarily because of breaches of local liquor bans.
Eight of the twelve districts recorded decreases in offences per 10,000 population. Northland had the biggest reduction (7.1 per cent), followed by Waikato (7 per cent) and Counties Manukau (5.4 per cent).
Wellington recorded the biggest increase of 4.8 per cent, with house burglaries jumping from 3201 in 2002 to 4126, a 28.9 per cent rise compared to a national average of 6.3 per cent.
Thefts from cars rose by 17.2 per cent, from 5387 to 6314. The national average was a drop of 0.8 per cent.
Wellington's district commander,
Superintendent Rob Pope, said the statistics were "deeply disappointing". He had pulled together the region's five area commanders to work out how to reverse the figures.
"When you take away violence and sexual offending, burglary is probably the most violating crime the public in general is likely to experience."
A reallocation of road policing staff to focus solely on "bulk offences" such as burglary was out of the question because funding had been specifically earmarked to concentrate on traffic enforcement.
The Central police district, which includes Palmerston North and Wanganui, recorded a 1.4 per cent drop in crime, from 34,934 offences in 2002 to 34,452, its seventh consecutive decrease since 1996. The drop per 10,000 population was 1.5 per cent.
Palmerston North area commander Inspector Pat Handcock said the city had experienced a 0.7 per cent increase in crime in 2003 but had recorded a 6 per cent drop in total crime during the first month of 2004.
The Eastern police district, which includes Hawke's Bay and Gisborne, had a decrease of 3.9 per cent in total crime (4.2 per cent per 10,000 population) and solved about half of recorded crime.
However, sexual offences almost doubled – from 191 in 2002 to 346 last year – while violent offending rose 11.1 per cent.
Police Commissioner Rob Robinson said he was concerned about the 1.5 per cent rise in violent crime, which included a 6.1 per cent rise in grievous assaults, but regarded the figures as a "tremendous result".
