Hawke's Bay crime stats: How does your area perform?

When it comes to crime, Hastings is safer than Napier, Wairoa has the biggest percentage increase, and Central Hawke's Bay assaults are up 97 per cent.

Analysis of Hawke's Bay's 2019 "crime snapshot" shows the most crime was committed in Napier (5195 offences) followed by Hastings (4946), Wairoa (545) and Central Hawke's Bay (421).

The snapshot reports recorded crime across six categories - assault, sexual assault, abduction, robbery, burglary and theft, and compares it with the previous 12 months.

In 2019, Napier crime was up 7.1 per cent. Theft rose by 10 per cent (263 offences - the biggest category rise in Hawke's Bay) from 2745 to 3008. Assaults were also up 10 per cent, to 548.

Wairoa recorded less offences but the biggest percentage increase - 26 per cent - to 545 offences in 2019. Thefts rose 33 per cent to 253.

Napier mayor Kirsten Wise said more crime was being reported, partly due to a new police 105 number introduced last May.

New council safety initiatives included the CBD Street Management programme, which funded the Napier Safety Trust to operate a number of CCTV cameras in different locations across the city.

They also included the Safer Napier programme which involved collaboration with 43 partner agencies with family harm as one of its focus areas.

Wairoa's 26 per cent increase is driven by extra cops on the beat, the city's mayor says.

Craig Little said he hated to see crime going up, but he felt extra police equalled more reported crime.

Burglaries and thefts had historically been poorly attended by local police due to a lack of resources, which had led to people not reporting them, he said.

Wairoa District Council now had CCTV cameras in the town, and Little hoped this would help prevent a further increase.

In Hastings, crime rose 1.45 per cent, to 4946 offences.

There were 573 assaults - down 86 on 2018. Burglary rose 6 per cent to 1439 - 87 more than 2018. Thefts were 2.1 per cent up to 2802.

Hastings Mayor Sandra Hazlehurst said: "We are working really hard to improve opportunities for our community through creating more employment opportunities and improving our people's social and economic wellbeing".

"The majority of these burglaries and thefts will be occurring in residential areas, so we are also actively engaging with our communities to get them to set up local neighbourhood support groups so we can all look out for each other."

She said improvements had been made to the CCTV network in the last 12 months and there were 170 camera feeds at 75 different locations spread throughout the district.

Other recent initiatives for crime reduction included the recruitment of former Police Sergeant Clint Adamson as a council security manager.

Central Hawke's Bay recorded the region's lowest volume of crime - 421 offences compared to 2018's 397 - but had the biggest percentage increase in any category.

Overall crime was up 6 per cent. Assaults rose 97 per cent, from 37 to 73.

Central Hawke's Bay mayor Alex Walker was saddened by the increase.

"As a rural-based community of small population compared to the rest of the region, CHB struggles to get the resources to deal with these issues.

"The police and social service agencies on the ground are stretched extremely thin," Walker said.

"We do what we can to work collaboratively alongside agencies and volunteers in things like our Safer CHB network who do extremely good work, but the pressures of issues like housing availability and affordability are having a hugely negative flow-on social effect in our community."

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Minister of Police Stuart Nash said the crime rates showed extra police were needed more than ever.

He said the introduction of new family harm legislation in December 2018 led to an increase in the number of serious assaults reported to police in 2019.

"There is also increasing demand for police to respond to callouts that aren't crimes, like mental health and road policing," he said.

Every year there are around 33,000 mental health callouts, 25,000 suicide-related callouts, and 340,000 traffic incidents and crashes, he said.

"Thirty years of locking people up and ignoring the factors that cause offending in the first place have failed to make a difference. Transforming our criminal justice system will take time."

National Tukituki MP Lawrence Yule said the increase in crime was down to the "soft on crime and big on promises" government.

"The law should be that you break the law, you should be arrested. People need to know there are ramifications to committing crime," he said.