Craig Cooper: Crime stats story only partly told

How much crime is out there? We don't really know, says Craig Cooper.

A while back now, a young police reporter was listening to an experienced cop explaining that crime wasn't getting worse - it was just that more was being reported.

The reporter asked "does that mean that when crime rates drop, it's because people aren't bothering to report it?"

I thought it was a fair enough question.

It didn't go down well, though.

And 25 odd years later, the "more crime is being reported" or "more crime is being detected" explanations roll out when Crime Snapshot data is analysed.

The truth is, we don't know at any one time how much crime is being committed, because it is impossible to detect all crime - we just don't know how much exists.

Therefore, we have no accurate crime baseline to compare increases or decreases against.

The comparative analysis of reported crime within the Crime Snapshot gives us indicators but it's far from definitive because of the variables.

Napier city - population around 63,000 - and Hastings District - pop 85,000 - have very similar numbers of reported crime.

In 2018, Napier had 4850 crimes, Hastings 4875.

2019 - Napier reported 5195. Hastings 4946,

As a percentage of the population, the Napier ratio is 8.2 per cent compared to Hastings (5.8 per cent).

How do we compare to other towns?

Whanganui pop. 41,000 - reported crimes 2511 (pop ratio 6.1 per cent)
Palmerston North 89,000 - 6800 (7.6 per cent)
New Plymouth 75,000 - 3234 (4.3 per cent)
Rotorua 75,000 - 6020 (8 per cent)
Tauranga 144,000 - 7131 (4.9 per cent)
Whangārei 96,000 - 4674 (4.8 per cent)

If we follow the theory that more vigorous policing equals more reported crime, then in 2019 there was a 7.1 per cent increase in crime in Napier.

In Hastings, there was a 1.45 per cent increase.

Does that mean that there are more police in Napier?

Who knows - because these statistics are only a snapshot.

And as much as they provide us with an indication of what is happening, it's what the snapshot doesn't tell us that is interesting.

There is no comparative analysis of gang crime within the snapshot, for example.

That would be useful.

But again, if gang crime dropped, is that because less is being reported because people fear the consequences, or don't think it will be solved?

And if there is more gang crime, is it because police are focussing on it?
Or is gang crime getting worse?

The reality is a snapshot is exactly that - a snapshot, it's far from the full picture.

If reported crime goes up or down, we don't know exactly why - we are making educated guesses.

The reality is there is an awful lot we don't know about criminal activity in our communities. The snapshot barely scrapes the surface.