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Extra police to support New Zealand Asian communities

Xinhua, February 2, 2017 Adjust font size:

New Zealand's burgeoning Asian communities will benefit from more police support, the government promised Thursday while unveiling a program to significantly reinforce front-line police numbers.

Another 1,125 police staff, including 880 sworn police officers, will be funded over the next four years to reduce crime and prevent reoffending, Prime Minister Bill English said in an election-year announcement.

They would also include 20 additional ethnic liaison officers to support Chinese, Indian and other ethnic communities.

The package would increase total police staff numbers to more than 13,000 from 11,925 by June 2021 and total sworn police numbers to nearly 9,800 from about 8,900.

"New Zealand is the fourth-safest country in the world, but demand for traditional police services is growing, and complex and serious crime is absorbing more police time," English said in a published speech.

The government would spend an extra 503 million NZ dollars (367.14 million U.S. dollars) on targeting and catching offenders, preventing crime and victimization, and delivering a more responsive service.

Five hundred of the extra frontline police officers would go out on the beat and into community policing to strengthen the emergency response, and focus on youth offending, burglaries and community crime, Police Minister Paula Bennett said in a statement.

Police Commissioner Mike Bush said the investment would increase the Police workforce by almost 10 percent over four years.

"The prime minister's announcement includes putting an extra 880 new police officers into frontline roles including response, organized crime, gangs and methamphetamine, child protection, family violence and in rural and ethnically diverse communities," Bush said in a statement.

"While crime is lower than it was five years ago, we have seen an increase in demand for police services in these areas," he said.

"The addition of these new staff means we can deliver more to support victims, prevent crime and hold offenders to account." Endit