Crime spikes as welfare calls grow
‘‘Somebody else will have to do the heavy lifting. Police are being pushed to do mental health, something they don’t have the capacities for and often isn’t even criminal behaviour.’’ Chris Cahill Police Association
Aucklanders are calling for more police on their streets, with local officers often tied up on welfare jobs relating to mental health and family harm.
Heart of the City chief executive and Auckland mayoral candidate Viv Beck wrote to Police Minister Poto Williams in December about the lack of police ‘‘on the beat’’ in central Auckland.
She quoted a ratio of 168 constables per 100,000 people across wider Auckland, much fewer than the Australian average of 420.
The central city has developed a reputation for crime in the past year, with business owners losing money due to night-life. Recently, cruise industry heads said tourists would likely need to be warned before entering the city.
Beck said more police would deter crime committed against business owners and citydwellers.
But Police Association president Chris Cahill said the complex nature of Auckland, which had created a mental health callout crisis, meant more policing would never be the answer.
Cahill said there had been a 60 per cent increase in police demand over the past year but only an 11 per cent increase in staffing. The numbers would never even out, he said.
‘‘Somebody else will have to do the heavy lifting. Police are
being pushed to do mental health, something they don’t have the capacities for and often isn’t even criminal behaviour,’’ he said.
‘‘Why are police attending these incidents? Other government agencies need to be stepping up.’’
Similar calls for more police
are being made out east, where businesses are being targeted on a daily basis for crimes like ram raids. St Heliers Business Association president Peter Jones said they were an everyday occurrence.
‘‘It is a daily reality for us now. The only way we can improve it is police presence,
having a higher profile in the streets where things are not going wrong at that moment,’’ said Jones.
Williams said that since 2017, police had added 328 officers, factoring in departures, in the Auckland districts.
‘‘There are more cops on the beat than ever before,’’ she said.
Simon O’connor, National MP for Tāmaki, said that while the growth in officers should be acknowledged as a ‘‘good thing’’, it was clearly not working.
The increased demand for welfare callouts had stopped police from patrolling Tāmaki district’s vulnerable streets, he said.
‘‘Many are being called out to more complex cases of mental health, so that unit – say, a patrol car with two officers – that is them used up for at least a couple of hours,’’ said O’connor.
‘‘The community wants assurance, police on the beat, but [police are] having to prioritise the workloads. They are doing so rightly but not as swiftly.’’
Police said last week they were more easily contactable and readily available in central Auckland than ever before.