Are traffic cops underresourced?
Police Minister Stuart Nash says revelations Canterbury police were too stretched to attend 943 boy racer jobs last year are ‘‘concerning’’.
Canterbury road policing manager Inspector Al Stewart said on Thursday police attended 232 boy racer jobs last year and impounded 1953 vehicles.
Stewart, commenting during a Christchurch City Council hearings panel into banning vehicles from Summit Rd, also revealed how many police were unable to respond to. The panel recommended against putting a ban in place.
Yesterday, Stewart said boy racer callouts were not ‘‘something that we consider low level’’.
‘‘When you’re talking about disturbing someone’s private home and maybe waking their kids up . . . it is a big deal for families and communities,’’ he said
‘‘We would love to get to all of them, but we’re just not going to be in a position to get to every job we receive, including boy racer jobs.’’
More staff would help police attend more alleged crimes, Stewart said, but it would not necessarily help them respond to all reports of boy racers being antisocial.
‘‘In any large organisation if you have more staff you’re going to be able to do more, there’s no doubt about that. If we had more staff there may be more high-risk jobs for us to get to, because we might not just be cancelling boy racer jobs.’’
The Labour-NZ First coalition Government committed to adding 1800 frontline police officers over the next three years.
Nash said some of those officers would likely end up in Christchurch.
‘‘It concerns me,’’ he said of the missed boy racer callouts.
‘‘The reason why Labour and New Zealand First came up with this figure of 1800 more officers is because . . . the number one issue in my own electorate was police resourcing. Wherever I go up and down the country people said we are concerned about the lack of police resourcing.’’
Nash believed people knew police were ‘‘stretched’’.
‘‘If you’ve got a boy racer hooning up and down the street you may in fact go ‘Oh what’s the point they won’t turn up’, without knowing that in that point in time the police are attending five domestic disputes, three burglaries and they’re investigating a homicide.
‘‘My gut feel is if we put more people out there, certainly initially we may see an increase in crime reported.
‘‘You may find that it doesn’t matter if we put 1800, or how[ever] many, the police are still going to be really busy.’’
Stewart said policing was a matter of prioritisation.
‘‘When there is a danger to personal safety . . . [that] will always come first.
‘‘That’s why quite often we’re not going to get to reports [of] boy racers doing burnouts, or speeding past someone’s house.
‘‘Not that we’re trying to belittle the offence, because we do want to get to them and we do want to deal with them, but there are many times that we can’t get to them because we have to prioritise the jobs.’’
Canterbury police had no issue with ‘‘car enthusiasts’’, who took pride in their cars and enjoyed going for a drive.
‘‘The problem comes when it’s the middle of the night and they’re playing their stereos, breaking bottles, urinating on the footpath and people’s properties.’’
Police were keen to sit down with the boy racer community and ‘‘talk through their behaviour’’.
‘‘Not all of them are behaving in this manner . . . yet there are still plenty of them out there that are doing it,’’ Stewart said.