Violent Crime up in Wellington

The Police stats out today shown crime overall down, but violent crime has risen. Violent crime is what most people want to be falling, rather than arrests for anti-social behaviour etc.

In Wellington violent crime went up 5.3% with almost 300 more offences.

Sometimes you need to even break the group categories down. Sexual offences dropped 5.1% but looking closer sexual attacks went up 6% and immoral behavior dropped 25%. Key thing is to look beyond the topline figures.

Much of the overall drop is due to 20% to 35% drop in drug offences. Now this does not mean there are less drugs – just less arrests. Again one needs to know the difference between a drop in crimes which have a victim/complainant and crimes which depend on police resources.

UPDATE: Antarctic Lemur has a good post highlighting that the major falls are in areas where numerous police officers had claimed they had been discouraged from pursuing, in order to keep the stats good.