Graffiti dobbers spurn rewards

Manukau City Council joined the Stop Tags tip-off line a month ago, but has been running its own anti-tagging line for two years.The council spends $1m on graffiti a year, of which $800,000 goes towards painting and cleaning, $100,000 on investigations and the rest on education programmes.Senior policy analyst Rex Hewitt said the programme had had resulted in a "noticeably cleaner city".

Tagger phone line is paying dividends

Tagger phone line is paying dividends

Taggers beware – Manukau’s new dob-in-a-tagger phone line is working.
Residents can call the anonymous number 0800 STOP TAGS to report tagging.

Manukau City Council community policy and planning manager David Tucker says the line is already proving its worth.

"At the moment we get about 10 calls a week, five of which are useful. Not a bad start since the line is only a month old."

Police Problems Continue

The revelation in Parliament by National’s Chester Burrows a former policeman that police solved only five of the 53 aggravated robberies of South Auckland shops in the six months before liquor store owner Navtej Singh was fatally shot in a hold-up will come as no surprise to those familiar with the under-resourcing of the police in the Counties Manukau Police District.

This follows stories of lost files and files left unattended as a result of a combination of low staff numbers and inexperience. The average level of experience in the CMPD is just 5 years compared with 15 years in Invercargill.

In 2005 the then Police Commissioner Rob Robinson admitted that there were 11 “unassigned sex cases” after questions were raised in Parliament by ACT MP Rodney Hide. Police Minister George Hawkins admitted that that of the 11 “unassigned sex cases” 5 were cases of rape complaints. Mr Robinson also acknowledged at that time that there were1000 unassigned criminal complaints.

New Zealand has a low ratio of sworn police officers to population and crime and criminals will flourish unless there are more police on the streets of our cities.

150 Violent Crimes a Day

The Prime Minister’s claim that incidents of violent crimes are dropping is just not correct. Over the past nine years, violent offending has risen by 43% across the country, while in areas such as Counties-Manukau it has risen by 64%. Last year alone there were 56,983 recorded violent offences - an average rate of more than 150 a day.

In a short period of just nine days three people within a few miles of each other were murdered.

People are angry and demanding that harsher penalties are imposed on violent criminals. National has stated it will build more prisons. What it needs to consider is whether it will reintroduce private prisons. The one prison in Auckland that was run by the private sector was more secure, more humane had a better rehabilitation record and was cheaper to run. Only Labour’s socialist ideology demanded that it be closed.

Crime-Friendly Neighborhoods

"Burras Road was a pleasant cul-de-sac of 21 new homes in Bradford, England. Its residents were blissfully unaware that, just east of the site, approval for a proposed new shopping center required the breaching of their cul-de-sac by a bicycle-pedestrian path.
Planners favored this requirement because, they say, cul-de-sacs do not encourage movement and therefore are 'auto-dependent' and 'anti-urban.' Opening up the site would connect residents to local services, and the path would promote walking and cycling."

Topless bar owner says courts 'too soft' on crims

The topless bar in Manurewa that Colleen Brown wanted shut down has been robbed at gunpoint the second such incident in the area in the last two weeks. Luckily, this time no one was hurt or killed but it does add weight to the police call for armed response in some parts of the country. The sad fact of life in New Zealand is that it is more violent and dangerous than it was even ten years ago. People I speak to are fed up with the violence carried out by a few and want action. For starters we need more police on our streets. New Zealand is under resourced when compared to Australia, US, England and Scotland. If it means paying the police more so be it. The first priority of any government is the protection of its citizens and their property.

Not so long ago the Helen Clark made the comment that we live in a benign environment. Clearly she has never been to some of the places in our community that are anything but benign.