Golden Bay Police have top crime clearance rates again
Golden Bay's police have topped the region's crime clearance figures once again.
"We cleared 65% of all reported crime for the second time in two years," said Sergeant Arthur Clarence. "It's the highest clearance rate in the Nelson Bays district and it compares very favourably with nationwide rates."
In the year to the end of June, 324 crimes were reported in Golden Bay. They included 29 crimes of violence and 57 drug offences, including one case of possessing LSD for supply, 15 cases of cultivating cannabis for supply and 5 of possessing other drugs for supply. Sergeant Clarence said that crimes of dishonesty and wilful damage made up the bulk of the number.
Sergeant Clarence also said that the 324 reported crimes made up only part of the police workload.
"Some readers of The GB Weekly might think that all we do is what appears in the police report in the paper but we can't publicise most of what we do," he said.
"We had 966 jobs in the year to the end of June, so reported crime is only part of the picture. We're involved in all sorts of other things like bail breaches, land and sea rescues, noise control and mental health incidents. Officers here attend incidents like investigating suspicious activities that police in bigger centres would not go to. On top of that we're very effective at apprehending drink drivers - we got 26 of them in the year. Some officers here do more evidential breath tests than staff over the Hill who work solely on traffic patrols. That impacts on our accident rate. When I first came here there'd be a car crash nearly every weekend but that's been reduced."
Sergeant Clarence said that the fact that the Takaka station does not have civilian support means that police officers' workload is higher.
"Our patch is bigger than Nelson and Motueka put together and our population goes up to about 15,000 for the summer months but we still don't qualify for civilian support. We had 238 lost and found property files on our list of jobs last year. They take a lot of time to process and work through."
Sergeant Clarence said that there was a perception among some people that crime was increasing, despite the best efforts of our police.
"Golden Bay had 318 reported crimes in the year to June 2007 and 324 last year. Our crime stats are pretty good and they have been for years."
Neil Wilson
