Less crime, more solved, say police

File photo / Martin Sykes

There was less crime and more of it was solved in the year ended June 30, police say.

Recorded offences per 10,000 people dropped by 1.3 per cent in the fiscal year.

Police said there were 580 fewer offences committed than in the previous year and police resolved 523 more offences, lifting the resolution rate from 47.9 to 48.1 per cent, an increasing trend over the past three years.

Police acting general manager of development, Kevin Kelly, said the statistics reflected a nationwide commitment to tackling crime.

"The figures are a credit to police staff and their commitment to making communities safer by holding offenders to account."

For the first time police used an Australian method to group crime figures, saying it was a step towards making statistics in the two countries more comparable.

During the year there were 65 murders compared with 54 the previous year.

Offences where people intended to cause injury rose by 3.3 per cent and were driven mostly by family violence assaults.

Police said although family violence had increased by 8.5 per cent, the rate of increase had slowed compared with 2007/08 (28.1 per cent) and 2008/09 (13.1 per cent).

Sexual offences, which made up less than 1 per cent of recorded crime and were known to be significantly under-reported, increased by 2.7 per cent, said police.

Drug offences increased by 1.8 per cent, but the resolution rate remained stable at 93 per cent.

Other crimes to decrease were robbery and extortion which dropped by 2.1 per cent, burglary (0.9 per cent) and theft (0.2 per cent).

Police said the biggest reduction was in fraud, deception and related offences which were down by 25.6 per cent.

In greater Auckland, recorded offences for every 10,000 people dropped by 7.2 per cent in Waitemata, by 6.6 per cent in Auckland City and by 3 per cent in Counties Manukau.

Police Minister Judith Collins said the reductions in crime were encouraging but the Government and police would not relax the pressure on criminals.

"I am very pleased that recorded crime has levelled off and shown a small decrease," Ms Collins said.

"This is an encouraging sign, but we will not be taking the pressure off criminals.

"Safer communities is one of the government's top priorities. Criminal offending is like a tax on every New Zealander."

There were 441,960 recorded offences in the 2009/10 financial year compared with 442,540 the previous year.

Ms Collins said a recent trend of increasing numbers of violent crimes appeared to be flattening. Assaults in public places were going down and large rises in family violence in recent years were more moderate in the past year.

- NZPA