New approach helps lower Creek crime
It’s been three years since a neighbourhood policing team set up shop in Cannons Creek. Tessa Johnstone talked to the team about what they’ve achieved and what’s next.
Sergeant Hemi Tito didn’t see it as his job to clean up the Creek – as far as he was concerned, it had always been a safe place.
‘‘I don’t think the perception inside is that it’s unsafe. People here don’t think that,’’ he said.
‘‘There’s definitely a pocket of people, like in any community, who choose to bend the rules and not play the game.
‘‘The perception outside might be that if you’re young and Polynesian or Maori and walking the street at 9 o’clock at night you’re up to no good. That might be the perception outside, but inside I don’t think that’s the case.’’
Despite that, the six- strong neighbourhood policing team is proud as punch of their latest stats – ‘‘volume crime’’ like burglary and car theft is down 30 per cent, violent crime is down by 19 per cent and ‘‘ calls to service’’ about intoxicated people, disorder and noise control is down 9 per cent.
The team credits the gains to the approach neighbourhood policing teams around the country were directed to take – building better relationships and working together with communities and supporting them to sort out the issues themselves.
‘‘The biggest win we see is that community ownership,’’ said Kapiti- Mana Senior Sergeant Penny Gifford, who is the area prevention manager. ‘‘The community’s growing ability for resilience and the reduction in calls to service is because they’re resolving and setting up initiatives of their own and we just sit behind them and support those.’’
Before 2011, when the neighbourhood policing teams were set up around the country after a successful trial in Counties Manakau, there was one community constable based at the small Bedford Court station, and he spent most of his days out and about.
Now the station has officers, volunteers and members of the community coming in and out most of the day. Rather than being greeted by mugshots of wanted people and blurry CCTV screenshots, there are photos of local schoolchildren’s achievements.
The idea was to build the capacity in the community to a point where a highly resourced station was no longer needed, Gifford said.
‘‘They’ve always known it was a finite time, so the challenge is making sure that the structure is right for us to depart.’’
There was no formal deadline for the initiative to end, and there was also no firm stance on what an exit might look like, she said.
‘‘ We’ve got to have it right before we leave. We don’t want it to fall over.
‘‘ It’s making sure the community is in a good position and well set up.
‘‘ We won’t leave if the community doesn’t believe it can manage without us being here in these numbers. If that’s the case we haven’t done our job.’’