From John Key’s speech to the Sensible Sentencing Trust yesterday:
“We’ve already got 271 out of 300 new Police officers in the Counties-Manukau district, and the rest have been recruited and are in training. The boost in Police numbers is making a difference too.
The Police in Counties-Manukau can be far more proactive because there are far more of them. For example, robberies in that district are down 52 per cent. House burglaries are down 31 per cent. And there’s been a 34 per cent drop in stolen vehicles.
That’s good news and I believe more is possible as the extra Police we are deploying really make their presence felt on our streets.”
You’ve always got to be suspicious when you see partial stats like this. Why is Key referring to a couple very precise classes of crime, why not all crime? It’s a bit like Bill English’s use of a sub-section of wage earners’ incomes to claim all wages are going up.
So, I went to the source. And guess what, crime is skyrocketing in Counties Manukau.
In 2009, the crime rate in Counties Manukau rose 6.9%, that’s twice the already awful 3.5% nationwide increase (which correlates with the unemployment increase, btw).
I’m not against the government saying it has boosted wages and brought down crime. I just wish that it was true.
Powered by WPtouch Mobile Suite for WordPress