A top safety and security expert is expecting organised crime to rise as a result of a Covid-19-fuelled recession.
Former police negotiator Lance Burdett's comments come after Stuff received a police document, requested under the Official Information Act, that predicts significant increases in mental health issues, family violence and online fraud due to the economic fallout of the virus.
Mr Burdett told TVNZ1's Breakfast this morning it's likely criminals will band together.
"I think that's a great possibility given that money is tight for some people - which means that supply and demand, they won't be buying drugs, they won't be buying other things perhaps - and so gangs are great at exploiting vulnerability in people and that could be well the case," he said.
"Hard times don't make good people bad. Hard times make good people vulnerable and they may be vulnerable to being victims of crime.
"Automatically we don't suddenly become bad because we are trying to provide the necessities of life for our family - it just makes most of us dig in harder and work harder."
Mr Burdett said a good example was following the Christchurch earthquake in 2011.
"Crime rates went down but people became more fragile, more vulnerable and more open to crime happening to them."
He said in organisations like police, staff were taught to identify if someone may be vulnerable and how to safely hold a conversation with them.
However, his advice to the public was: if they or someone they know is struggling, open up and talk about it.
"It sounds cliché, but talking is the only way to get thing out of our head," Mr Burdett said.
"It's just that for any number of reasons - guilt, regret, whatever - we don't want to open up. But making it easier for people to open up is the way through this stuff, so that's what police are doing through education."
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