Kaitaia working together to solve recent crime spike

Acting Senior Sergeant Sarah Wihongi of Kaitaia police: "Talk to us, not Facebook."

Kaitaia police and the town's community are working together to solve a recent crime spike.

Police called a public meeting at Te Ahu on Monday to discuss the recent spike in crime in the town and to seek some answers. The more than 200 people who turned up had plenty of ideas.

A community discussion the week before had already produced suggestions including the forming of Neighbourhood Support (Watch) groups, the reinstatement of values, supporting local businesses in employing local youth, "mummy" support groups and parenting classes, community patrols, a temporary 10pm curfew for those aged under 17 and improved street lighting.

Police and public agreed that the former could not solve the problem without the support of the latter, while Senior Sergeant Geoff Ryan called on victims, and those who knew of crime, to talk to the police rather than posting information on Facebook.

Acting Senior Sergeant Sarah Wihongi agreed. "Our guys are doing some amazing work, but they don't know what they don't know," she said.

"It might make you feel better to post on Facebook, but we need all the information we can get."

Mr Ryan also warned that the extra police promised for Kaitaia would not be a panacea, one speaker replying that the best "extra cops" were "mum and dad".

"The police are the fall back," she said, "and if the problem gets to them it means someone else hasn't done their job."

A lot of children were "lost" because they were looking for "daddy", adult criminals often providing the most attractive substitute, she added.

The meeting concluded with more than 50 people signing up to make a personal voluntary contribution to making Kaitaia safer, by means including patrols, monitoring the town's CCTV cameras and removing graffiti.

Ms Wihongi understands public concern over Kaitaia's crime "spike", but has pointed to the success of uniformed staff and the CIB over recent weeks.