What you need to know about police’s new specialist gang unit

Tuesday, 14 May 2024

The Police Commissioner has announced a national gang-focused unit that he says will 'combat the impact of gangs and organised crime groups'.

With 42% of gang members linked to reported crimes as a suspect or offender and 18% of serious crimes committed by gang members, it’s clear New Zealand has a gang problem. Katie Ham reports on top cop Andrew Coster’s proposed solution.

Police Commissioner Andrew Coster has announced plans to establish a specialised national gang unit, which he says will target offending and intimidation by gangs.

But why do we actually need this unit, where are these police staff coming from and how will the project be funded?

Here’s everything you need to know about the new national gang unit.

Why do we need a national gang unit?

According to Coster, gang members commit a “disproportionate” amount of crime and harm in Aotearoa - and freshly released statistics agree.

Gang members make up less than 0.25% of the New Zealand population, with 9800 gang members recorded on the National Gangs List.

Yet, 86% of gang members who have appeared on the National Gangs List over the last 10 years go on to be linked to reported crimes.

A further 18% of these gang members are linked to serious violent crimes, such as homicides, assaults, abductions and kidnapping, and robbery offences.

The national gang unit will sit alongside the proposed banning of gang patches to form part of a suite of tools available to police to target gang crime.

Gangs have also been shown to be disproportionately involved in harm caused by drugs. For example, gang members make up 29% of all non-cannabis drug manufacture and distribution offences, and 30% of non-cannabis drug supply offences.

While Coster hasn’t set the unit any tangible targets, he said the unit’s success will be measured by a reduction in the harm gangs are doing in the community

“When we see all of these numbers go down, we’ll know we’re on the right track,” Coster said.

What actually is the new national gang unit?

Coster said the Government had made it clear that tackling gang crime was a priority, and the new unit was one of the ways he planned on doing that.

With Police Minister Mark Mitchell at his side, Coster unveiled plans for the national gang unit at a press conference in Auckland on Tuesday morning.

The unit will be a “strengthened, coordinated, intelligence-informed” nationwide taskforce that will prioritise efforts to combat gang violence across the motu, he said.

Alongside existing frontline teams working in the districts, the unit will aim to disrupt and prevent gang related crime, disorder and intimidation.

The new unit would target offenders in all gangs.

Coster estimated that between 25 and 30 specialised police staff will form the basis of the national unit. The unit will then be supported by teams in every district, with about seven people in each team.

The number of teams and their exact placement are still being worked through, he said.

Aided by proposed Government legislation - such as, the incoming gang patch ban - the unit will aim to see a reduction in harm from gangs in the community.

The unit’s operations are set to begin on July 1.

Coster warned that the unit wouldn’t be an “overnight fix”.

Where will the police staff come from?

Additional staff will be created through a mixture of “re-prioritisation” and new investment, Coster said.

Exactly where police officers will be re-purposed from is less clear, however.

“There's always opportunity to reprioritize and we've been very clear about the need for us to refocus on our core policing priorities.

“Police has become very spread across a wide range of prevention functions, and some of those functions are not the domain of police to deal with,” Coster said.

How will it be funded?

As tense pay negotiations continue between the Government and frontline police staff, how much the unit was due to cost was a point of particular contention on Tuesday.

According to Mitchell, all will be revealed in the budget announcement at the end of the month.

“We’ve been very clear that we will continue to invest in our police and we've been very clear that we want resources on the front line,” Mitchell said.