A drop in burglary and robbery crimes have seen less crime victims in New Zealand overall, but more people are still coming forward as victims of sexual assault, statistics from police show.
The number of victimisations recorded by police in the past year fell by 2.7 per cent, meaning 7240 less victims, minister of police Stuart Nash said today.
The police statistics for 2018 showed the drop in victimisations involved 1393 fewer crimes against a person and 5847 fewer crimes against property.
"This decline has been led by a drop of 4706 burglaries, representing a 6.8 per cent decrease. This is really pleasing given the invasive nature of the crime and its effect on people’s feelings of safety in their own home," Mr Nash said.
There was also 570 fewer robberies last year.
"After spiking to more than 4000 robberies in 2017, recorded robberies dropped by 14 per cent, following significant effort by police and investment from Government to provide fog cannons and other prevention advice to at-risk shop owners," Mr Nash said.
"But while the trend is heading the right way in these categories, there are still too many victims and families suffering the trauma and other effects of serious crime."
While there were 1000 fewer victims of assault, a fall of two per cent, police recorded 119 more victims of sexual assault, an increase of two per cent.
Today an additional 80 new constables will graduate from the Royal New Zealand Police College. New frontline officers numbering 1190, have been deployed around the country since the Coalition Government took office.
"I am also delighted with the diversity and range of skills of today’s new graduates. The youngest is 18 years old and the oldest is 48. One third are women, 14 per cent are Maori, and they share at least 12 foreign languages between them," Mr Nash said.
He acknowledged the 37 new constables supported emergency services at the Tasman fires as "brave and commendable".
"One of the Coalition Government’s top priorities is to improve the wellbeing of New Zealanders," Mr Nash said. "There is a particular focus on community policing and on tackling organised crime, which is a driver of crimes such as burglary and assault."
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