No change in measures on retail crime: Justice Minister

The government has no immediate plans to change any of the measures that are in place to address retail crime, Minister of Justice Kiritapu Allan said in Parliament on Wednesday.

The minister was responding to a question put to her by National Party member Paul Goldsmith.

Goldsmith wanted to know if the minister had sought advice on the effects of “automatic release provisions for first-time prisoners with a sentence of five years or lower.”

Goldsmith then quizzed the minister on the prevailing crime trend.

The government was focused on ensuring “there is a continuing trend on crime that is going downwards,” the minister responded.

She said crime was on a downward trajectory over the last 10 years.

The minister noted the opposition parties were focused on “getting tough on crime slogans -- boot camps that cost expensive amounts of money and have an 85 per cent failure rate.”

 Goldsmith drew the discussion to the “explicit justice targets of the government.”

He faulted the government for projecting as a target the 30 per cent reduction in prison numbers when there has been a 20 per cent increase in serious crime in the last few years.

The minister parried the question by claiming spikes in crime were nothing new. They happened when National was in government too, she reminded the member.

She said one of the government’s targets in respect of retail crime was to provide wraparound support for victims. She identified the recently unfolded “belt and braces measures approach.”

 The minister reiterated the government’s evidence-based approach to combating crime.

But Goldsmith pointed to evidence showing a 500 per cent increase in ram raids in the last year.

Minister Allan replied: “What we are seeing is a general trajectory over the last 10 years – but particularly under the Labour Government – of crime rates that have come down.”

She drew a distinction between “spikes of crime that are temporal and a trajectory that goes straight down.”

Summing up the government’s efforts to address retail crime, the minister said 1,600 police had been put on the frontline. The police budget had been increased every year after “the National Government froze it year on year on year.”

The government had done more to control firearms than any previous government. It had also cracked down on gangs and organised crime, the minister noted.

The minister highlighted the subsidy scheme that provided small retailers with $4,000 for installing fog cannons. This was above the $6 million invested in a retail crime prevention fund to help with installing CCTVs, shatterproof glass, bollards, and other equipment at retail stores.

“This is a government that is focused on the victims of crime,” the minister declared.