KEY POINTS:
Campaigns to target domestic violence and alcohol-fuelled disorder in the inner city have helped create a 6.9 per cent rise in recorded crime in Wellington in the past year, police say.
Coupled with those police campaigns has been a 20 per cent rise in thefts from cars. Car
crime was up 1099 from last year's figure of 6662, making it a substantial proportion of the 2900 extra offences reported in Wellington compared with last year.
"The statistics are the statistics, I don't apologise for that," district commander Superintendent Pieri Munro said.
"What I want to do is give confidence to Wellington people and communities that our police are out there, they are professionals, they are committed in terms of their role, and we are putting them in the right place in the right time. People should feel safe."
Targeted patrols of well-known trouble spots such as the Lower Hutt CBD and Courtenay Place - central Wellington's party zone - had led to more arrests for violent behaviour, as well as a high, 82 per cent, clearance rate for such crimes, Mr Munro said. That included an extra five staff assigned to the central city's Strategic Response Group.
"We have a less tolerant approach in terms of charging people. Where there are serious offences we will charge, and often we will charge them with multiple offences and leave it for the courts to manage that process."
The Wellington district had followed national police policy and targeted family violence, Mr Munro said. That had contributed to the rise in violence offences, a rise which was likely to continue when new community-based teams designed to work with at-risk families began work later this month.
"Where people are beating up on their spouses, then we are going to charge them with everything we can charge them with. That's the sort of approach we are taking ... family violence is not okay," Mr Munro said.
"To some extent we do this to ourselves in terms of the type of policing or the way we police, it does have an impact, albeit marginal, in terms of the statistical outcome," he said.
"Whilst Wellington district is up there, a 7 per cent increase on last year's figures, underneath it there is a certain part of it that we have driven ourselves, in terms of pro-activity, in terms of the way we police and charge."
