New package to tackle NZ retail crime
Tāmaki Makaurau - A multi-million dollar package to tackle New Zealand retail crime and reoffending is the most significant crime prevention financial package in recent memory.
Government is to provide $4000 for all small shops and dairies in New Zealand who want a fog cannon installed, with shops to pay the balance.
The existing $6 million retail crime prevention fund eligibility has been expanded to include aggravated robberies, including those committed during the past 12 months.
While youth crime is much lower than in the past, the risks and harm from ram raids and other retail crime is concerning communities and creating victims.
Police are having a noticeable impact on offending rates, with ram raids during November down by 83 percent compared with August but 13 so far this month against a high of 75 in August.
The move backs up police actions, through funding to support crime prevention initiatives, such as better street lighting and cameras and by investing in more fog cannons.
Despite global supply chain issues, police have been successful in ordering an extra 455 fog cannons, which are expected to arrive before Christmas.
More challenging will be the time it takes to install them. The 1000 fog cannons that are already installed took four years and despite police doubling the number of contractors, it’s expected it will take till the second quarter of next year for the number of installations to start to ramp up.
The fog cannon fund was set up in 2017 after aggravated robberies of commercial premises had doubled from 2015 from 599 to 1170. It was expanded in 2018 and 2019 and 1000 fog cannon were installed by the end of 2021.
The $6 million retail crime prevention fund was set up for small shops and dairies in early 2022 as offending shifted to ram raiding.
More than 100 shops now have installations approved, with 431 security measures allocated and underway. This includes 93 fog cannons, 78 security sirens, 57 alarms, 63 CCTV systems, 43 bollards and 36 roller doors.
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