The crime stats
Judith Collins says:
Increased pressure on criminals and a greater focus on crime prevention has contributed to a further drop in the recorded crime rate, Police Minister Judith Collins said.
Reported crime dropped 7 percent on a per head of population basis during the fiscal year ended 30 June 2011, statistics released today show. This compares to a 1.3 percent drop in the year to 30 June 2010 and a 6.7 percent drop for the 2010 calendar year.
There were 34 murders in FY 2010/11 compared to 65 in the previous year. This is the lowest number of murders in a fiscal year since fiscal year crime statistics began being published in 1986.
A falling crime rate is a good thing, but I always like to look at the breakdown by category of offences. The overall crime rate figure can be a bit misleading for two reasons:
- It treats all crimes as equal – one minor assault is the same as one murder
- Some categories of crime are related to how much police effort goes into busting people there, such as minor drug crimes. So hence an increase in crime might just mean more active Police. For this reason I prefer to look at mainly violent crimes, as they are the ones most likely to be reported.
The big one is murder, and as Judith Collins said it is at a 25 year low. From 1999 to 2008 the murder rate went up 3.8% and since 2008 it has dropped 36.5%. But to be fair these are low numbers, often variable.
The overall serious assault rate went up 35.6% from 1999 to 2008. Since 2008 it has dropped 9.2%. This is especially pleasing as we have had a recession and increased unemployment. Some on the left say that crime is just a function of poverty and unemployment, but while they can be factors, this shows other policies do have an impact.
There will be a number of factors in the decline, such as the extra police numbers. I personally think the three strikes law may also be starting to have a deterrent effect. Many criminals are not stupid. They know how often they get arrested on average, and how much time they normally get. To some degree crime is a calculated risk (for some). The certainty of no parole on strike two and a maximum sentence with no parole on strike three may be making the price of crime too high for some of them.