These words are proving particularly popular this term, with Hansard recording 79 “soft on crime” references between the 2020 election and March this year - up from 50 in the previous term and just six in the term before that, when Labour was in opposition.
Is the Government soft on crime? Surely no political party or right-minded person would want more crime.
As Herald journalists Michael Neilson and Chris Knox report, both Labour and National could be classed as “soft” and “tough” at various points. For instance, total police charges have dropped under Labour - but dropped even more under National.
According to police data, monthly reported retail crime has increased by nearly 60 per cent since 2017 but police have said the increase is largely due to better reporting and recording methods.
The app-based programme Auror was introduced in 2015 to make it easier for retail chain stores, supermarkets and petrol stations to report shoplifting and theft to police, particularly for goods worth less than $500.
A 2017 Retail NZ survey found close to 70 per cent of retail crime went unreported.
In 2017, 15 per cent of retail crime was reported through Auror, increasing to 65 per cent by 2022. The latest available data to January this year shows reports through Auror have increased more than tenfold to 6560, while reports through police decreased to 3108.
An increase in theft then is not as dramatic as raw figures might suggest. By excluding the Auror reports, the 33 per cent increase in reported crime between 2017 and 2022 becomes a 7.8 per cent increase.
Another recent change that could have affected the number of crimes reported is the introduction of a Police 105 line.
Meanwhile, reports of violent crime have gone up. The police and Police Minister Ginny Andersen have attributed this to two new offences in the December 2018 changes to the Family Violence Act: assault on a person in a family relationship that impedes breathing (strangulation or suffocation).
There is little argument there’s a spike in anti-social crime, mostly attributed to post-Covid complications, but the debate should be around causes and whether it is just a blip or part of a longer-term trend.
Whether New Zealand should return to a more punitive regime; continue trying to address underlying issues in offenders; or even go further to rehabilitate and lift people out of the arrest-incarcerate-release cycle is a debate worth having.
Victims of crime deserve better than misappropriated data and rhetoric such as “soft on crime”.
