Minority causing majority of retail crime in Southland
Ten per cent of retail thieves in Southland are causing the majority of loss and harm for businesses in Invercargill and Southland, a data analytics company has found.
During the past 12 months, it was found that 10% were repeat offenders for whom retail theft was a day job, data from Software company Auror, which provides data analysis around retail crime, showed.
Auror co-founder and chief executive Phil Thomson said “these incidents are not ad hoc or opportunistic theft; it is targeted and it is organised”.
According to Auror’s findings, the 10% were responsible for 72.5% of the loss and harm experienced by Southland retail businesses and 70.5% for Invercargill retail businesses during the past 12-month period.
“During the Christmas period we saw the pattern of retail crime spiking during the all-important peak sales season, with Auror finding the rate of retail crime in New Zealand Q4 2023 was already 26% higher than 2022,” Thomson said.
“The number of retail crime incidents on average per retail store has increased over 70% from 2020 to 2024 for stores using Auror across the Southland region.”
Auror was founded in New Zealand in 2012 and works with 85-90% of enterprise retailers, Thomson said.
It was not a crime reporting platform, but one that aided retailers to report the crime after it had happened, he said.
New Zealand Police have a tie up with the company and can have access to reported crimes.
“Police numbers released last year show that 84% of all retail crime is reported to New Zealand police via the platform,” Thomson said.
“Auror assists retailers in reporting crime after it happens and is not live surveillance.”
Southland area commander Mike Bowman said police had been working with retailers in Invercargill to reduce the retail crime and its impact on the business community.
He said retailers were encouraged to report even minor incidents, which had given police valuable insight into the situation and enabled them to deploy resources effectively and increase police visibility around shopping centres at key times as a deterrent.
According to police, the majority of the retail crime offending reported through Auror was “low value offending”.
However, Bowman acknowledged that it was a small cohort of repeat offenders committing the larger value retail crime and “these are usually small, organised groups”.
“Police focus our efforts on holding the most prolific retail offenders to account and those who are undertaking brazen and harmful retail offending, such as ram raids and aggravated robbery,” he said.
As of March 1, businesses in Southland had 47 government-funded fog cannons installed on their premises, Ministry of Business, Innovation & Employment data showed.
In November 2022, the then-Labour Government announced a $4 million fog cannon subsidy scheme in an effort to deter ram raids and burglaries, following the killing of dairy worker Janak Patel, who was stabbed to death in Auckland.