Some residents wanted to know why changes were made to the community policing model in the first place. One resident asked how the police would measure their new community policing model against the old one.
"When we first talked about community policing, I think most of us imagined it would go back to something like that," she said.
"What happened when we abandoned the old system is that petty crime went up."
Constable Craig Berquist — a former community constable himself — said the police have to find new ways of operating.
From mid next year the Waikato will have a mobile police base, which will be able to visit communities and allow residents to have face to face chats with a constable. While the base is in a community, police officers will patrol the local area.
Mr Berquist blamed social media for making local offending appear worse than it actually was,
"Everything gets blown out all around the place that crime is high."
One Hamilton west resident told the meeting he had lost faith in police because nothing has been done after numerous calls about drugs being sold from a Housing New Zealand property.
"Last night there were 22 cars that came in for a max of two minutes and then left."
Labour MP Jamie Strange said HNZ was a government agency, and people live there as a privilege; they should not be abusing it.
Mayor Andrew King also spoke to the group and said that poor parenting was playing a part in the rise in crime. "We need to have these children grow up with a sense of love and a sense of worth, and that is the biggest things we can do as parents," he said.
Mr Casson plans to hold one more crime prevention meeting in Hillcrest, with a date to de decided for early 2019.
