In the first quarter of this year, reports of break-ins and burglaries in the Southern district increased by about 5% on the corresponding period last year. In Dunedin, the spike was 22%, while in Queenstown Lakes and Central Otago the number of reported victims of burglary and break-in rose 39% and 61% respectively in the first three months of 2018, police figures show.
Southern district prevention manager Inspector Matenga Gray said although he could not give anything away which would compromise an ongoing investigation, Otago residents could be confident police would arrest the rise in burglaries "very soon".
"We acknowledge there is an increase in burglaries ... and we don’t shy away from that."We are confident we will soon resolve those matters."
Insp Gray said Southern district police had dedicated more staff and more resources to dealing with the spike in burglaries. The numbers appeared to back him up. Southern district police actions, called "proceedings" in their jargon, against those suspected of burglary or break-in, which can include everything from court actions to warnings, have increased nearly 44% in the first three months of this year compared with the corresponding period last year.
This bucked the national trend, in which proceedings against those suspected of burglary or break-in dropped 13% in the corresponding period. In the first three months of this year, the most recent data available, Southern district police undertook 99 proceedings against alleged burglars.
The police commissioner had set a goal of attending 98% of home burglaries within 24 hours, Insp Gray said. In the Southern district, 93% of burglaries at dwellings were attended within a day, but Insp Gray believed the ambitious 98% figure was achievable.
Insp Gray, who oversees intelligence, road policing, deployment and Maori responsiveness in the district, is a big believer in the police’s "Prevention First" operating model, which was aimed at reducing the number of victims of crime by 10,000 by 2021.
"We work hard with communities ... neighbourhood policing teams go out into communities giving advice to improve the security of their homes."
"Sometimes it’s the simplest things, like overgrown vegetation. Take that fence out there, change your locks over here.
"A lot of crime is opportunistic ... if it looks too difficult, they’ll go and find some place that’s easier."
He cited the work of police with Mitre 10 at "tradies’ breakfasts," at which they provided free identification marks and security advice to tradespeople, as an example of Prevention First in action.
Related Stories
Comments
Didn't read the Article. Matenga I think the police need to be supported by the majority of NZ public, the judges need to be on the same page as the police and not to undo the good work they do by letting the people off and last of all the police need uniformity and discipline within the police force. This is the first picture of a police man or police woman who appears to have pride in the uniform and haircut. When I was living in NZ I'd always see a lot of scruffy police, haircuts, uniform hair styles, bracelets in uniform, if that the uniformity and discipline and judges were sorted then I think it will go along way to making the police force again be professional respected and at times fared when needed to be.