Top police accused of fiddling crime data

Two police officers in different parts of the country say district commanders are manipulating crime statistics to make them look good.

One officer wrote to the Weekend Herald saying he had 20 years of frontline experience and that district commanders had "taken the national crime stats situation into their own hands".

"They have managed to completely distort the statistics," he said.

Another wrote to the editor of the Police Association publication Police News, calling himself "Doubting Thomas" of Auckland. He said that police officers were recording crime inaccurately on instructions from their supervisors.

The claims come one month before the release of the national crime statistics and at a time when Police Minister George Hawkins has been under intense political pressure over police performance, including problems with the 111 service. He has promised to "take the rap when things start to break down".

Last year, recorded rates of crime were at their lowest for 20 years and crime resolution rates continued to rise.

Overall there was a 4.7 per cent drop in the national crime rate and the decline was even greater, 6.5 per cent, when the rise in population was taken into account.

Mr Hawkins said the figures put the country's rate "of catching crooks among the highest in the world".

Police Association president Greg O'Connor said district commanders across the country were under "extreme political pressure" to cut crime.

"Crime is very much an election winner or loser. As a result, the political pressure is coming down through the system - through the commissioner and down through the district commanders - to cut crime," he said.

"I would certainly not say there is dishonesty [but] ... they are paying extreme attention to their recording systems ... where there are ways of recording crime to make the statistics look better, that option is being taken."

A spokesman for Mr Hawkins rejected "totally and completely" any suggestion of Government pressure to influence crime statistics.

"The statistics have been gathered for many years, they are subject from time to time to minor variation due to category changes," he said.

The officer who wrote to Police News said a large amount of crime went unreported .

He cited examples of statistical inaccuracies such as finding a man who was listed as wanted by police for interviews.

After interviewing the man, he went to update the statistics and found that the crimes had been recorded as solved by the person who had recorded the man as wanted for an interview.

There was no evidence he had committed any of the crimes he was being questioned over, he said.

"When I mentioned this to others, I was told that this is usual practice," the letter said.

Assistant Police Commissioner Howard Broad said the person who wrote the letter to Police News should be speaking to their district commander.

A number of people were involved in crime recording and statistics throughout the country were audited independently every year.