Fund the Police!

Written By: - Date published: 7:25 am, December 2nd, 2016 - 21 comments
Categories: Judith Collins, labour, police - Tags:

So it turns out Judith Collins is letting organised criminals off the hook as she insists the Police make burglary a priority.

If you’re the minister, and notice the police aren’t managing to cope in one area after successive funding freezes, you can:

a) fund them so that they can get to it
b) keep their funds frozen, and divert them from something else

And apparently ‘something else’ usually ends up being organised crime.

An anonymous police officer has written in the police association newsletter:

“We’re robbing Peter to pay Paul and the sums don’t add up. If we want to make a dent in these burglary stats, perhaps shutting down a squad focusing on organised crime isn’t the way to go.”

“If I believed we had the capacity to attend every burglary, I’d be 100 percent behind this idea, but we’re only chasing our tails. The only solution is more staff. With successive frozen budgets, we’re at rock bottom.”

There is a party promising 1000 more police.  Labour can see that the police, like the rest of the civil service, is starved.  And the cracks are really starting to show, just like they are in health and elsewhere.

21 comments on “Fund the Police! ”

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  1. gsays 1
    2 December 2016 at 8:49 am

    Hmm.. Very well, I am sure the police want more $.
    A bigger well funded ambulance down the cliff…

    How about more funding for mental health?
    Fully fund cypfs and increase numbers and pay of social workers?
    Lower teacher/pupil ratios and a teacher aid in all classes? Acknowledge the damage done in state care.

    • millsy 1.1
      2 December 2016 at 9:33 am

      Yes, for a lot of people now, the police and court system is the only arm of the state they deal with. That isn’t right.

    • Ben Clark 1.2
      2 December 2016 at 12:49 pm

      certainly those things are needed too. (Although teacher aids may not be the best bang for buck in education, but won’t sidetrack…)

      Bill English talks ‘social investment’, but ends up building prisons. We do need to focus on mental health / social services / less poverty & inequality etc to break the cycle.
      But we can’t let organised crime off the hook in the meantime either…

      • gsays 1.2.1
        2 December 2016 at 12:56 pm

        hi ben, cheers for response.

        what is the nature of the organised crime?
        drugs and burglary are mentioned.
        a way to be more effective against organised crime and it’s free (budget neutral?)
        decriminalize drugs.

        • Andre 1.2.1.1
          2 December 2016 at 12:59 pm

          “a way to be more effective against organised crime and it’s free (budget neutral?)
          decriminalize drugs.”

          Go the whole hog and fully legalise them. Turn a police expense into a taxation revenue stream.

  2. Psych nurse 2
    2 December 2016 at 9:21 am

    Organised crime is big business, Nationals natural bed fellow.

  3. AB 3
    2 December 2016 at 9:37 am

    Collins treats the police , the justice system and the penal system as tools to increase the electoral appeal of the National Party.
    Does she actually care in principle about their core functions and social purpose? Not so much – or at least only indirectly when any failing to fulfil those functions has electoral consequences.
    It’s a type of deep cynicism and corruption very characteristic of the Nats

  4. KJT 4
    2 December 2016 at 9:38 am

    How about more money to schools, social services and mental health?

    Less police time chasing victimless crimes like dope smoking and being brown, young and driving.

    Less money on police, and locking people up.

  5. Siobhan 5
    2 December 2016 at 10:21 am

    How many criminals are former wards of the State, and how many are the children of wards of the state?.

    Now I am not claiming that becoming a ward of the state will ruin your life, its the abuse and neglect of your family that sends you down that path. But surely well thought out and well financed State intervention should be able to turn a good number of lives around.

    So how about, spending more money on each kid in care, support and select foster parents and whanau carers better, AND , importantly, offer these kids more help and funding in their schooling (as a former foster parent I can say the slap dash attitude to education and training gave long term foster kids a one way ticket to the street and crime).

    And…full enquiry into abuse in Care…historical and current.

    then you might not need more cops. Or prisons. And we might actually end up with a kinder more caring community.

    • Exile 5.1
      2 December 2016 at 1:32 pm

      Excellent reply.
      We may also need to work with changing certain norms and values in our “failed” communities.
      When you have whole families where crime is the answer, there needs to be intervention from the state and support provided to children from an early age.

      I still remember the Henderson kids that murdered a shopkeeper. Whole family in prison and they stayed with their nana who described as a pillar of the family said that “its not easy for todays children there are so many temptations out there”. Sad
      Its a time to reflect and look ourselves in the mirror. Shouldnt we as a society have been more involved? Where the nana really equipped to handle these kids when the parents the uncles and the cousins all where locked up?

  6. adam 6
    2 December 2016 at 11:19 am

    And where is the police union, Oh wait, hip deep in the the bosses pockets…

  7. save nz 7
    2 December 2016 at 11:54 am

    Natz are just controlling micro managers who can’t comprehend comprehend complex issues, they couldn’t organise social cohesion if their lives depended on it.

  8. Muttonbird 8
    2 December 2016 at 9:08 pm

    Hi Ben. Most people seem to have missed the clever title of this post but I thought it very funny.

  9. Cinny 9
    3 December 2016 at 8:18 am

    In Parliament the other day when questioned re police funding, Judith kept saying, just wait, just wait. That allows her to shut down the question, then just before the election they will make an announcement to increase police funding. They’ve done it like this many times before, it’s one of the nat parties classic algorithm’s.