Speech to Central North Island Safer Community Co-ordinator's Conference

Check Against Delivery

Thank you for inviting me to address today's Central North Island Safer Community Co-ordinator's Conference.

This conference is a perfect occasion to consider ways to make our communities safer.

Of all the crimes committed in your neighbourhoods, burglary is bound to be the most common. Drug abuse and the distribution of illegal drugs is also all to common in our communities.

Today, I'm pleased to share my thoughts with your on how we can aid the Police to meet its responsibility to the community - to crack down on such crimes.

Maintaining Law and Order, in my view can be placed into two camps. Reactionary enforcement and pro-active policing.

Crime prevention is at the heart of the Government's justice strategy.

Stopping crime before it occurs is the best way to bring crime rates down. If we focus only on picking up the pieces after crime has occurred, and do not invest in effective crime prevention, we will never have enough jail cells to deal with the problem.

Crime prevention isn't something that can simply be done from Wellington. Crime is a community problem and preventing it means drawing on the energy and skills of those members of the community who believe their neighbourhood can be a better and safer place to live.

The crime prevention partnership is about central government, local government, and our respective community organisations and networks supporting those local efforts, and supporting each other to achieve that vision.
Some of you may be aware that the United Nations has designated 2001 as the International Year of Volunteers.

I mention this because crime prevention cannot work without volunteers. It relies on ordinary people making the commitment to the wellbeing of the communities in which they live.

Currently there are over a thousand volunteers involved directly with Safer Community Councils around the country, and many thousands more New Zealanders involved in crime prevention in their communities in other, sometimes less direct ways.

The International Year of Volunteers is about valuing the contribution of volunteers and strengthening community services through government working in partnership with the voluntary and community sectors.

Some of our best and most successful crime prevention initiatives have been generated from community level.

Last year's referendum showed the strength of community concern about the level of criminal offending.

Key justice sector priorities for this Government, as we signalled before the election, include:
· Targeting burglary;
· Giving more weight to the rights of victims;
· Expanding restorative justice initiatives; and
· Preventing offending and re-offending by children and young people.

Safer Community Councils have a valuable contribution to make in all these areas.

Central Government demonstrated its commitment to these justice goals in the Budget, with significant new expenditure on anti-burglary, youth crime, victims rights and restorative justice packages.

The burglary package involved funding of $19m over four years, for a range of initiatives including target-hardening to reduce repeat burglary victimisation; expansion of Police intelligence 'crime mapping' capabilities; and increased numbers of specialist police anti-burglary teams.

In addition new legislation will make life tougher for burglars. The new Bail Act 2000 makes it more difficult for repeat burglars to get bail, and the upcoming new Secondhand Dealers and Pawnbrokers Bill will make it harder for burglars to sell stolen goods. Proposed amendments to DNA sampling laws will improve the ability of Police to tie burglars to their crimes.

The Victims' Package provided funding of $7.7 million over four years for: extension of the Courts Services for Victims scheme; a programme to inform victims of their rights; and establishment of a travel fund to help victims of serious violent offences and families of murder and manslaughter victims to attend court trials and sentencing hearings.

The strengthened Victims' Rights Bill will make recognition of victims' rights mandatory and will provide for victims to be consulted over final name suppression of an offender.

The Restorative Justice package put $6.6 million aside over four years for five more community-managed Restorative Justice programmes.

The largest package, in fiscal terms, was the Youth Offending package. The Budget provided funding of $93 million over four years for a mix of new and existing services to prevent youth getting into trouble and dealing with those who have offended.

The package included funding for a large number of programmes delivered at community level, many via the Crime Prevention Unit and Safer Community Council network. For example, funding was provided for mentoring programmes for children and young people in Auckland and Christchurch, and a further neighbourhood-based safety programme in Munroe Street, Gisborne.

As part of our commitment to tackling offending by young people, we have also established a Ministerial Taskforce on Youth Crime, chaired by Principal Youth Court Judge David Carruthers. The Taskforce of Chief Executives is responsible for developing and driving through a coordinated package of initiatives to reduce youth crime and ensure effective use of resources in the youth justice sector. The initiatives will be focused on improving practice, processes and coordination between justice sector agencies.

Safer Communities networks along with Neighbourhood Support play a major part in encouraging people to network, to know our neighbours, to be forever alert to what occurs in our community, to establish effective community networks and watch groups that create a more secure environment for law abiding residents.

There is also a reactionary role that we should advocate. And that role is simple: where we see suspicious behaviour, we must alert the Police. In this way we all are the eyes and ears of the Police. And there lies a symbiotic relationship that is essential in making New Zealand a safer place.

Burglary, I believe, sits at the centre of the criminal culture. Burglary is often committed so criminals can raise money for drugs. Gang involvement is often involved.

Gang control in the dealing and distribution of cannabis is organised in New Zealand. The distribution of methamphetamine is also controlled and peddled by gangs and organised criminal elements.

The insidious criminal culture that targets youths and youngsters as users of drugs and then ropes them in as distributors presents an insight into the sick, selfish minds of these criminals. Once a youngster is hooked, whether this be from drug addiction or social addiction, they are well on their way to living a life of crime.

It is due to this insidious criminal element, that I am fervently opposed to the decriminalising of cannabis.

It is wrong to take the criminality out of what these gangs do throughout this country.

All of us should face up to that fact.

It may be trendy for some to gather at parties, to huddle in a corner to share a joint. Those attending posh parties ought to listen to this as well. Every person who takes part in this, or turns a blind eye, is supporting the repugnant organised criminal, who through organised gang involvement, controls the cultivation, distribution, and social deprivation that revolves around this country's cannabis culture. Each drag on a joint supports a history of violence, a history of killings, of lost ambition, of pain that has occurred in the name of cannabis and other drugs.

Like you, I am aware of signs and signals of criminal activity in our communities. I am not blind to it.

Graffiti stained neighbourhoods offer a clear signal to all who venture within them that this is the patch of youth gangs and that an established criminal element exists. Behind the shadows lurk layers of criminal activity. Some gangs are disorganised. Some are sophisticated. The gang kingpins often approach their activities in a businesslike manner.

They sit back like the generals of crime. Young people are exploited. They are persuaded to burgle. Good people are made victims. Such is the nature of crime that the Police are charged with cracking.

Add to this the career criminals who weigh up risks of being caught compared to how much they can earn from burglary.

I must say, for too long, that equation favoured the criminal.

The Labour/Alliance Coalition Government has Budgeted for programmes that target burglary, neighbourhood, and youth crime.

We are providing Police with the tools to crack down on crime. And I am encouraged to see that the number of burglaries has reduced. The latest indications are that the Police are resolving more burglary crimes.

Additional to this, I am encouraged that Police are cracking down on truants.

Successful operations of this nature in Counties/Manukau have produced results - not only in getting these kids back to school, but also in reducing daytime burglaries.

The Police have been resourced to expand LET teams, and to increase INTEL capabilities. Programmes like these, and the computer MAP based analytical crime fighting tool are examples of how the Government has provided Police with the necessary tools to crack down on crime.

Here is some detail of our commitment.

· Crime Mapping Technology has been given a $1.341 million dollar boost over this financial year with a further $4.725 million over the following three years.
· Preventing repeat victimisation - target hardening pilot policy has received $280,000 this year with a further 960,000 dollars over the following three years.
· Funds to the tune of $2.51 million this year provide an additional three LET teams in the greater Auckland region, with an additional $7.593 million over the following three years. It is imperative that Police National Headquarters, who have been resourced by Government to increase the number of LET teams, do so as soon as possible.
· Resources for enhanced DNA testing add to $338,000 for this current year, followed by $902,000 over the next three years.
· These programmes, add to a total fiscal value of $4.469 million this year with an additional $14.117 million for the following three years.

Criminals have been given a stern message. That is that this Government will not tolerate burglary. We will not tolerate the advance of a criminal culture.

We have followed up that message with action.

The Police Commissioner knows that this Government expects police to respond to burglary complaints within 24 hours. In this year's budget we backed this expectation up by contracting Police to respond to burglary within that time period.

We have moved to equip Police with the tools necessary for them to carry out this expectation and requirement.

Compare this to the past National government's stance on burglary. All of you will know how it was commonplace for Police to take up to five days to respond to a burglary. Under National burglary was a low priority crime.

I said then that this was not good enough. And in gaining office I told the Police Commissioner of our expectations. I must say the Police are meeting that expectation and performing well.

I announced last month that, on average, it now takes Police seven hours 11 minutes to respond to a burglary. You will have to agree that is an improvement.

Now, when scene-of-crime-officers arrive at a burglary, they are hot on the criminal's trail.

Do you ask why this Government places such a high priority on burglary? Consider the harm it causes.

There are those, as you all know, who live in our communities, who steal from our communities. They steal not only material goods, but also the pride and security of those that the figures title "Burglary Victims".

All of us in this room will have personal knowledge of what it feels like to be a burglary victim. If not directly, then as a witness to a loved one who has had the sanctity of their home taken from them. They are violated, they are invaded, and they sometimes struggle to recover from the lingering fear that an intruder can enter their homes at any time and take what they wish.

Simply, burglary makes victims of more New Zealanders than any other crime. Fact.

Burglary also provides criminals with experience that enables them to perpetrate other serious crimes and acts of violence.

Serial rapists Joseph Thompson and Malcolm Rewa, offence after rape offence worked alone, stalked alone, entered their victim's homes with ease, viciously attacked their victims, violated their victims, then escaped from the crime scene aided by a premeditated getaway plan.

Their ability to escape being caught for so long was aided by a history of being career burglars.

Burglary is the nucleus of the criminal culture.

For reasons such as I have outlined here this morning, this Government takes burglary very seriously.

Your role as Safer Community co-ordinators can ensure that our communities aid Police and Government to crack down on crime.

We all now that it is certainly worth the effort.

You are all experts in your field. You know the difficulties that face you in your work. This conference can aid us all if it considers how we can all focus on a common purpose.

I am keen, as Minister of Police to encourage forthright debate on how the Police can better meet their responsibility to the Government and the greater community.

We must focus on the job at hand. But we must also always be vigilant in developing ways that will better serve today's community to ensure that our families and loved ones are safe in their homes and that tomorrow's New Zealand is a better place.

Thank you.