Minister wants police 'visible' on the beat, as Auckland suburb deals with intimidating alcoholics

Monday, 29 January 2024

Residents at meeting in Auckland’s Point Chevalier said their town square had become overrun with crime since the library closed.

Police Minister Mark Mitchell is promising there will be more police doing “beat” work, walking the streets, after residents of a well off Auckland suburb fumed about a lack of police presence in response to anti-social behaviour.

The residents of Point Chevalier have been seeing issues of alcoholism, including theft and intimidating behaviour, in their town centre.

But when the residents association asked police to step up with more foot patrols, they were told it was infeasible to have officers visiting the shops every day.

Senior sergeant Alan Rowland told a community meeting that resources were stretched across Auckland, and across a variety of issues - many more serious than vagrancy.

Police Minister Mark Mitchell says hiring more police will mean they can spend more time on the beat.

“I will kill the elephant in the room, and tell you that one thing I’m not going to promise is a policeman in Pt Chev shops every day,” he told a community meeting.

Mitchell told Stuff he expected police would soon be able to do more community work, responding to issues like this.

“We have committed to increasing the Police strength by 500 additional officers,” he said.

National had campaigned on increasing the police force by 500 officers over two years.

Ginny Andersen is the former police minister, and Labour’s spokesperson for police.

He said they would work on the “front line”, and he wanted officers to be “highly visible and back on the beat”.

But former police minister Ginny Andersen said Mitchell was over promising and needed “a reality check”.

“First of all, I think they will struggle to make 500,” she said, pointing out that recruitment rates were down.

“Secondly, the question is will the 500 even make a difference given the current high demand on police services? We hired an extra 1800 and that increased police numbers in every district, but police are still under strain,” she said.

“Part of that strain comes from the nature of the offending we are seeing, with serious violent crime. We are still seeing that increase.”

At the community meeting, residents complained that there was no one enforcing alcohol bans and said people were stealing and drinking “with impunity”.

In response, the residents were encouraged to form a community patrol. Merril Bourne of Community Patrol NZ said no one from the upper middle class suburb had volunteered for community patrol, meaning Mt Roskill’s volunteers had to lend a hand in Pt Chev.