Thin blue line gets thicker in toughest crime areas

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Dedicated police teams will be patrolling 30 of New Zealand's most crime-ridden neighbourhoods by the end of this year, says Police Minister Judith Collins.

An extra 18 neighbourhood policing teams will start work around the country, and the number of teams operating in South Auckland will be doubled to 12.

The teams of one sergeant and up to six constables go into small communities of about 3000 people with high crime rates and entrenched social problems. They work for up to five years with local people and organisations to take back control of neighbourhoods affected by criminal behaviour such as violence, drugs and gang intimidation.

Police have not yet named the neighbourhoods but likely candidates include the gang-dominated Hastings suburb of Flaxmere and similar pockets of Whangarei, Rotorua, West Auckland and Porirua.

Mrs Collins said the extra staff would come from 600 police promised by the Government by December, including 300 for the previously overwhelmed Counties-Manukau district.

She said crime in Counties-Manukau had fallen this year by 7.8 per cent - or 9.8 per cent per head of population. The decrease seemed to be partly due to the neighbourhood policing teams.

"They have provided a tremendous amount of leadership and a real anchor for the community, so that somebody's making sure that things are happening. They also make it really clear to those who are involved in criminal activities that the police are here and they're here to stay."

Deputy Commissioner Mike Bush, who introduced the scheme last September when he was the Counties-Manukau district commander, said neighbourhood policing teams were an important part of the force's prevention-first strategy, which aims to stop crime happening in the first place.

He said the long-term, problem-solving approach targeted neighbourhoods where 10 per cent of the population held the law-abiding 90 per cent to ransom.

"What we plan to do is support the 90 per cent and enable them to take control of their communities."

Mr Bush said a review was under way to test the scheme's effectiveness but early results showed crime was falling even though the teams were uncovering previously unreported offences such as drug dealing.

The head of one of Otara's three neighbourhood policing teams, Sergeant Jonathan Milne, said police had learned to change their approach to earn the community's trust. "We've actually gone in and asked questions and listened, rather than telling people. We've sort of got a mandate to police in these areas because we've brought the community with us."

Community leader and Otara-Papatoetoe Local Board member Poutoa Papali'i agreed, saying some local people had resented the "boot the door down, bang, you're under arrest" mentality of some frontline officers from outside the area.

They now trusted the neighbourhood team.