Council concerns over community policing

Budget restraints have relegated community policing to an ambulance-at-the bottom-of-the-cliff approach, a former police officer has claimed.

Timaru District Councillor and former police officer Peter Burt said community policing efforts, such as ‘‘walking the beat’’ and building relationships, were the first things to go when budgets were cut.

His claims come hot on the heels of a call from local councils sick of footing the bill for security measures to increase funding for community policing. However, police say a falling crime rate proves the organisation is doing its job.

A remit was passed at the Local Government New Zealand Conference this week calling for increased resourcing for community policing.

Councils collectively agreed communities were already ‘‘footing the bill’’ for increased security measures like CCTV and foot patrols, indicating the day to day presence of police in communities was shrinking.

The remit asked for Local Government New Zealand to advocate for an increase in police resourcing to ensure ‘‘adequate police staffing and coverage could be provided to New Zealand communities, and that police commanders are not forced to compromise community policing due to budget constraints’’.

Burt said councils should be covering the cost of things such as CCTV cameras. ‘‘That’s our responsibility.’’ However, police had been hit by budget cuts that impacted their community policing resources, he claimed. That was because there had been a move towards prioritising things that could be quantified, as opposed to things like building relationships in the community, he said.

‘‘How in the world would we quantify that?’’

Timaru District Mayor Damon Odey said the council had supported the remit.

‘‘While we don’t have the issues on same scale of other districts, it is a central government responsibility to provide policing to our districts, not local government’s role, and while all government departments are under pressures to be financially prudent, the reduction of officers on the ground and opening hours of physical police stations, is causing pressures in other districts.’’

In a written statement, a police spokesperson said police were committed to ensuring they worked as effectively and efficiently as possible, to ensure they provided communities with a service that focussed on their needs and delivered the best value.

The crime rate has fallen by 16 per cent since June 2011, resulting in about 53,000 fewer crimes, the spokesperson said.