Tuesday, September 28, 2010

The redistribution (and slight reduction) of crime

The police have issued some new statistics relating to various measurements of crime prevention, crime detection and crime reporting. They compare monthly statistics for August 2009 to August 2010 and can be viewed nationally or by district.

From these graphs it is noticeable that where more crime prevention measures are applied less crime is reported. Unfortunately the input isn't consistent across the country. For instance I have compared Counties Manukau with Lower Hutt on just a couple of measures. In the Hutt 'foot patrols' have almost halved and 'vehicle thefts' have risen. In Counties Manukau the opposite applies.

This isn't necessarily consistent across other areas but it is clear that the police are putting resources into particular areas (functional or regional) at a cost to others. It would be interesting to see what plugging in all the various data shows.

Nationally, reports of crime are down slightly by 4.4% and detected crimes are down 2.7%

That of itself is interesting because leftists usually link increased poverty (recession) with increased crime. This is however a comparison between months - not years.

No comments: