Posted by Grant Paice on Jun 06, 2018

An insight policing

My apologies for the READ MORE section not working properly last week and the whole story not being published. Here we go again !

 

We were privileged to have John Price, the District Commander, share some insights into policing activities in the wider Canterbury district.

 

John has a long history with the NZ Police.  Before taking up his current position, he was the National Manager of Training & Development based at the Royal NZ Police College.  This included being responsible for all training of new cadets as well as all field staff throughout New Zealand. 

 

The college itself was officially opened in 1981 by Prince Charles and, a few years later, the Queen visited and gave it the current title as the “Royal” NZ Police College.

 
 

Previous to that John was an Area Commander in a district which included Porirua and Kapati, with one being the oldest and the other being the newest area, which presented a unique challenge as the needs of these areas were very different.

 

John shared an interesting fact regarding the origins and name of the Mongrel Mob.  Founded in Porirua, it developed as a result of there being a number of males who were beginning to get into trouble for intimidation.  Following a small number of these men being sentenced for transgressions, the judge – in summing up – referred to them as: “A mob of mongrels” and the name stuck.

One of the more challenging times for John occurred after the Christchurch quakes.  One hard decision he had to make was the closing of the CBD.  This, however, was seen as crucial in order to ensure lives were saved as the safety of many buildings was unclear at that time.

 

In commenting on issues surrounding the CTV building, and in particular the decision not to continue to pursue with charges against those who might be held responsible, John shared that this was the result of them having no law that enabled this path to continue.  

 

In order for such a crime based on manslaughter to occur, John explained, there needs to be two parts: “action” and “intent”.  In this case there may well be an action but no intent.  Also, the “action” must have occurred no longer than 1 year and a day of the incident for charges to be laid.  As a result of the longer time frame, this is no longer an option.

 

With respect to profiling, John found that there are very few actual hardened criminals.  Most of the cases dealt with tend instead to involve people who make crazy mistakes. 

 

The exception often involves Methamphetamine (P being the pure form) as it can significantly alter the mind and creates paranoia.  This also relates to a number of other less popularised drugs that can have similar affects.

 

In helping explain the link between these drugs an crime, John gave the following example:

 

·       1 gram of P a day costs $1,000.

·       That’s $7,000 in order to feed the habit for a week.

·       Needing to raise this amount of capital week after week typically leads to criminal activity including dealing in order to fund it.

 

Synthetic cannabis was also mentioned as another major challenge as it often does not show up in current testing procedures.

 

John next shared the challenges he faced when called upon to go with a team of Police to assist with the identification of 5,000 bodies following the Phuket tsunami.  When caught in the resulting wave bodies tend to get churned by all the debris and it proved to be a very challenging task.  What they typically looked for included rings, watches, fingerprints, medical procedures (e.g. pace makers or metal hips with ID numbers), teeth etc. and where appropriate attempted to match these with official records. 

 

John noted that we are really lucky in NZ as we have a welfare state whereas in Thailand there is nothing which added to the distress and suffering of all families affected by this event.

 

Returning to his role in Canterbury, John shared the following details:

 

·       The area has 1,0oo staff to police 600,000 people in an area that ranges from the Waitaki to the Hunterlys.

·       Their 111 number receives 292,000 calls a year i.e. 33 an hour.

·       Only 14% of these are related to crime. In responding to these,  those involving danger or injury to people are prioritised over ones involving damage to property.

·       Last year there were ~100 suicides and 3,600 attempted suicides. 

·       200 family violence issues were attended with children involved 90% of the time.

·       Over 50% of homicides involved family violence which is dealt with by two specialist teams.

·       Mental health is a particular issue in Canterbury and takes up 20% of Police activities.

 

In terms of crime prevention, John explained that Police actively try to identify why people do what they do.  He also believes that in many cases employment is a great preventer of criminal activity.

 

With respect to youth, John’s current thinking is that only a very small proportion of this age group get into real trouble and this often occurs from age 14 onwards.  He feels the formative years are critical in establishing good behaviour patterns and shared as model where children are like a chair with four legs:

 

·       A caring family.

·       A sound education.

·       Involvement in a sport.

·       Having a belief system and hobby.

 

John suggested that of you take away one of these they usually are OK but if you take away two of them then they can be in trouble.

 

Returning to additional statistics, John shared that:

 

·       12,000 offenders were dealt with last year.

·       2% were responsible for 25% of all crime.

·       3% of the 600,000 people in wider Canterbury are repeat offenders.

 

With respect to family violence, one of the more upsetting facts John shared was that this has typically been occurring for 2½ years before the Police are called to become involved. 

 

In terms of dealing with shop theft, John felt that the design of areas is a key factor. In looking at why Countowns, for example, get a significantly larger number of item thefts compared to New Worlds, he asked us to think about why that might be.

 

One key factor came down to how the aisles are laid out compered to where the checkouts are.  Countdown aisles are at right angles to checkouts and hence not easy to see whereas New World ones are straight up and down and hence much more visible to staff.

 

Another big area of theft is petrol station drive-offs.  John mentioned that the UK has this sussed with pre-pay in most locations plus in some locations there are spikes that can be activated to shred the tyres as a fleeing car exits.  Again it comes down to design and process.

 

John next talked about the Hagley Park as an example of myth versus reality.  Many Cantabrians are frightened of being there at night but there tends to be very few if any people there after dark and crime rates are very low. 

 

The last group John talked about that is often not clearly understood in terms of risk was the Mongrel Mob.  He asked us how many members there are in Christchurch and our guesses ranged from between 50-250.  He corrected our guesses by sharing that there are currently 16 members here and half of them are being housed by the Government near Templeton. He also gave an example that when one of them was himself involved in a dangerous situation, he ended up calling the Police for help.

 

With respect to New Zealand as a whole, John shared that the overall mission of the NZ Police is for us to be the safest country in the world.  One thing that he feels helps ensure this is that we only have one police department compared to, for example, the USA which has over 19,000. 

 

While the Police in NZ have the ability to use what force is required including weapons to ensure public safety, whenever this results in death it is immediately followed up by an independent investigation to ensure due process was followed.

 

As a result of this the general public currently have 80% “trust and confidence” in their police force which is the highest in the world.

 

We thanked John for his candid, straight forward and enlightening presentation which certainly gave us all food for thought.