Our thin blue line stretched

Police services are spread too thinly, which is contributing to the rise in crime, says new Police Association president Chris Cahill.

Violent crime and youth offending are up almost 10 per cent on last year, adding to an overall increase in crime of 3 per cent, according to the latest police annual report.

The figures are another blow to police after they were criticised in July for not attending every burglary, on the back of Statistics New Zealand’s data showing the number of break-ins had risen nearly 12 per cent.

‘‘In certain places we are stretched to breaking point,’’ Cahill said.

‘‘That is mostly affecting those front line staff who are going from job to job, not getting a break in ten hour shifts, and impacting on the service we want to provide.’’

The report outlines a major goal of the police is to make New Zealand the safest country in the world, bringing crime down 20 per cent by 2018.

New Zealand sits fourth on the World Atlas Global Peace Index (GPI), behind Iceland, Denmark and Austria.

The GPI gauges global peace using three broad themes: the level of safety and security in society, the extent of domestic and international conflict, and the degree of militarisation.

To help reach such lofty goals, police have a staff of 12,035 employees, of which 74 per cent are constabulary.

The Warehouse, New Zealand Defence Force, Fonterra, and Fletcher Building each employ more people than police.

To be the safest country on the globe is a worthy goal but it needs realistic resources to be realised, says Cahill, who believes police are as much a social service as they are law and order.

‘‘At the moment we have one officer to every 528 people, and we believe just to manage current workloads we need that ratio to be at least one to every 500.

‘‘To achieve these goals we need to be even lower, and match Australia who are at one cop to every 428 people.’’

A police spokesman said their ‘‘real time’’ operational deployment model better allowed them to match staffing to meet demand, including identifying crime ‘‘hot spots’’ and they also received $299.2 million more in the last Budget, he said.