Q+A’s Guyon Espiner interviews Police Commissioner, Howard Broad.

Points of interest:

- It will be “decades” before some tougher government law and order policies take effect

- Commissioner wants to “get into crime prevention in a big way” as there’s only “a small amount of evidence” that tougher sentences deter criminals

- Police have for years been asking for detox centres in the main cities, and “we look forward for the government to pick up on it”

- 18% of police budget goes into alcohol issues as New Zealanders drink longer and stronger: “we’ve gotta turn that around”

- Police Officers don’t use ethnic profiling, but Commissioner acknowledges” some antipathy between Maori and Police”

- Police not prioritising Maori recruits over non-Maori despite failing to meet targets

- Broad: If it was a straight out choice, all other things being equal, we'd go for the Maori probably, but we don’t have a… positive discrimination programme

- Commissioner confirms “no more money” for police wages

- Broad hints at wanting a second five year term: “it has probably got the most satisfaction of any job I could think of”.

The interview has been transcribed below. The full length video interviews and panel discussions from this morning’s Q+A can also be seen on tvnz.co.nz at, http://tvnz.co.nz/q-and-a-news

Q+A is repeated on TVNZ 7 at 9.10pm on Sunday nights and 10.10am and 2.10pm on Mondays.

HOWARD BROAD interviewed by GUYON ESPINER

GUYON Thank you Commissioner for joining us this morning this morning we really appreciate your time. Let's start with those crime statistics, I mean they show that there were something like 450,000 recorded criminal offences last year. That when you break it down is something like 1,250 a day or nearly a crime a minute. I mean this image that New Zealand is a safe little country, is that a myth?

HOWARD BROAD – Commissioner of Police

I think comparatively we still are a safe country, I think though we do have a problem with violence. Just remember that in the crime statistics you are seeing crimes that are reported to us by the public, and you are seeing crimes that are detected by us, so when you're looking at the crime statistics as I do, you'll look and see what are the underlying trends and also what are the impacts of Police effort. You take the violence figures...

GUYON We'll get to that in a second, but it had been trending down for a long time hadn’t it, most of 2000, most of that decade the actual total crime was trending down. Now when you adjust the population it's up 3½%, why is that, why are we seeing it rise again?

HOWARD Because we have looked at the statistics that relate to Police effort, we have got very energised about things to do with street violence, alcohol....

GUYON So it's because you are doing your job better?

HOWARD Yes I think so. You know the rise in family violence recorded offences this year was 18%, now that’s on the back of a fairly significant five year programme that the Police and other agencies have been involved with to increase the reporting of a crime that was previously still occurring but hidden within families and so on. Liquor ban offences, these weren’t there 12 years ago, and there's now about 10,000 of them.

GUYON But is that right though Commissioner because when the crime statistics are low we say it's because Police are doing a great job, when they're high it's because they're doing a great job because you're catching more criminals.

HOWARD When they're coming down it's Police leadership, when they're going up it's someone else's fault, I think that’s what you're trying to say, that’s some of the canteen humour that Police use from time to time. I think if you look at the long run of statistics around New Zealand, you know homicides for example, we're about the same level we were in about 1978, there's been ups and downs in between, this last year was a fairly significant spike up, but it still fits within this longer term trend. Dishonesty offending, well that’s been tracking down and whether that’s as a product of some shifts in offending patterns, for example, do we know that we're recording all of the crimes that are occurring on the internet, aggravated robberies have risen quite significantly?

GUYON Well there are many different categories of crime, and let's not go through all of them. I want to concentrate where you said initially we have a problem, and that is around violence. Now there were 11 laws passed last year in the criminal justice area, many of them relating to violence, and violent offenders in terms of cracking down on parole, and tougher sentences. Do you expect those 11 laws passed in 2009, to have a significant effect on reducing violent crime in 2010?

HOWARD Not in 2010, I think that the effect of those will carry through over a much longer time period. There are some things that I think are showing immediate results, for example...

GUYON Well can I focus on that, how long before those laws, because that’s why they were introduced, to make us safer and to reduce violence.

HOWARD A lot of those ones relating to sentencing policy are really going to be extensions to people's sentences at the end of their sentence, so that comes at the end of an already what is going to be a long prison sentence.

GUYON So this is decades away from having ...

HOWARD Some of this will be decades away, some of it I think will have a reasonably immediate effect. I look at the way that my staff have got involved with the civil assets forfeiture regime where we're tackling people who make money out of selling drugs, I think that will have a reasonably quick impact.

GUYON When you look at sentencing though, we have increasingly tougher sentences over the last decade or more, the jails are full, by some counts we lock up a higher proportion of our population outside the United States than anyone else in the developed world.

HOWARD So it makes sense then to get into crime prevention in a big way it would seem to me, and I think that’s the part of the policy mix that the government is looking at, the drivers of crime. I think there's room to move and move quite substantially.

GUYON That’s interesting. So do you believe though that tougher sentences have any impact on deterring criminals? Do they stop in their tracks and think I'd better not commit this crime because the sentences for that have gone up?

HOWARD For some yes, there is a small amount of evidence that shows that some people don’t move on in their criminal career because of the strength of the sentencing regime. I think though that some of the motivators for violent offending and other sorts of offending need to be tackled more firmly, and I look particularly at the issue around alcohol which is our major driver.

GUYON I want to come to that a bit later, but Maori are a big part of the criminal justice story aren't they, just a 7th of the general population, and as we know 50% of the prison population. Now either Maori are massively disproportionately criminal, or the Police are paying them more scrutiny than they pay other New Zealanders, which is it?

HOWARD Well you know the co-relatives of crime are those things like truancy, abuse in the household, the drugs and alcohol, and the failure to combat, to confront behavioural issues as a youngster grows up, that tends to be more prevalent in lower socio economic groups, Maori are massively over represented in the lower socio economic groups, does it surprise anyone that therefore they're showing out in the crime statistics.

GUYON So is it not true that Police pay greater scrutiny to Maori than ...?

HOWARD We go after the crime. If there is a part of the community and it's the lower socio economic group, you can't just ethnically stripe this, although if you look in the prisons you can be tempted to do so. Lower socio economic people, those with lesser of a stake in the society, they are the ones that are gonna show up in the worst of social statistics.

GUYON Can I put it bluntly this way? A car load of Maori men, are they more likely to be stopped than a car full of Pakeha men?

HOWARD If they're about to commit an aggravated robbery yes.

GUYON But there's no profiling as such by Police?

HOWARD No we don’t, no.

GUYON Maori are over represented in the criminal justice system but under represented in the Police, aren't they? You had a report delivered to you in February which looked at Maori recruitment in the Police, and it did say that poor or negative perceptions of Police is one reason why Maori are not joining the force in greater numbers. What are you doing about that?

HOWARD Well we've been very active in recruiting of Maori, and I – while there is a great belief and some antipathy between Maori and the Police because of that statistic that we've just been talking about – we've actually got quite a high representation of Maori in the Police.

GUYON Yes but not nearly as high as your targets were.

HOWARD No that’s true.

GUYON Your target in 2001 was to move to 18% and it's sitting at 12%.

HOWARD That’s right, which is around about the percentage of Maori in the population, just slightly below, so we do want to improve that. But we'd be one of the biggest employers of Maori in the country, you know we're an organisation of 12,000 staff, we have a very sympathetic environment in which Maori people can actually have a career, and we have a lot of extremely capable Maori Police Officers.

GUYON This report said that you need to change the face of the New Zealand Police, and I'll quote one section where it recommended to you, it said “this requires an organisational commitment to prioritise Maori, Pacific, and other ethnic groups in the recruitment over non-Maori”. Are you picking up on that recommendation?

HOWARD No. We are marketing to Maori, to Pacific, to Pakeha, and to Asian people.

GUYON Sure, but so you wouldn’t prioritise, in other words take someone into the Police college, because they're Maori over another New Zealander?

HOWARD If it was a straight out choice, all other things being equal, we'd go for the Maori probably, but we don’t have a proactive programme or positive discrimination programme for doing that.

GUYON Alright let's move on Crime is the big fear, but the real risk in terms of fatalities is often on the road isn't it? Often the road toll's about five times the murder rate commonly. Again we've seen the road toll coming down in recent years, but then lifting again, and just recently we've had what 21 deaths in seven days. What responsibility do the Police take for that?

HOWARD Well the long run of fatalities on the road statistics from say 1973, has been a substantial success story, and that’s primarily down to the enforcement activities of the New Zealand Police. I mean the policy people have put together that programme, realise that the best cost benefit in a programme in reducing the road toll is actually through using enforcement. Now that brings us into conflict with mainstream New Zealand, who are very quick to point out that we're very keen to tag them for speeding.
GUYON And does that worry you Commissioner because haven't you insinuated, intimated, in the past that you'd like to separate out the powers again?

HOWARD No I didn’t say I'd separate out the powers. I said I'd be a bit more thoughtful about how we applied our road policing effort. What I said was, why would you have a Police Officer with a radar gun who then once they detect someone speeding, exceed the speed limit to catch them, stop them and issue a ticket presently using hand written forms? I think there are other ways that you can use technology to increase your effort, and also reduce the costs so that you can allocate it somewhere else. So that’s what I was on about, I think that there is – well it is my money that’s going into the Police, I don’t think that necessarily just enforcing everything through a Police Officer on the street is the right way to go, there are other things we can do.

GUYON Alcohol's obviously a big factor, something like a third of all fatalities involve alcohol. What is the Police view on reducing the adult blood alcohol limit from 80 to 50?

HOWARD I think we're one of the first to actually stand out in the public domain and say it's gotta happen.

GUYON So you absolutely back that adult rate going down?

HOWARD Yes.

GUYON When you look at alcohol, I think you said near the top of the programme it's probably one of the biggest factors that actually impacts on Police work. You back raising the age back to 20 years old, and being 20 years old before you can purchase alcohol?

HOWARD I think you must do that as part of a wider set of policy changes around the alcohol. If you just raised the age I don’t think that will be the single golden bullet that will fix the problem, there are a whole heap of other things. I mean we still have a big attitude problem around alcohol in this country. The last decade I think you’ve seen some significant changes in the way we drink. I know that there'll people of my age sitting out there thinking that we, you know at university and whatnot, you drank a lot and no harm came of it. People we're drinking 3% alcohol in those days, the beers that our young people are drinking now are anything from 4-5% up to 13%. The young women are drinking these Ready-to-Drinks, or Alco pops which can have anything from sort of 13-21% alcohol. People are getting drunk much faster, they're getting drunk over a longer period of time, and particular Thursday, Friday, Saturday nights.

GUYON So that’s drinking culture, what about Police's own drinking culture? I mean your Police bars aren't subject to the Sale of Liquor Act, shouldn’t they be subject to the same laws that any other New Zealander faces?

HOWARD That’s our position, the Police administration are saying that we want the exemption removed.

GUYON So when will it change?

HOWARD Well there's a whole Law Commission set of proposals that are due out any moment, result of a very extensive in-depth study by the Law Commission. Our submissions to them are saying we don’t think that the exemption should stay.

GUYON Why not?

HOWARD Well I think for exactly the same reason, if you're going to show some leadership around this issue you should subject yourself to the same rules that anyone else has.

GUYON What is the culture now of drinking within Police? Because there have been reports in the past that you haven't exactly been leading by example, the Police I mean.

HOWARD That’s right. The attitude is a different one than when I was a young Police Officer, we've got people now who are much more involved in the community in sport and other endeavours, they don’t just congregate around Police Stations after work and drink, and I think that for a lot of parts of society that’s true there. But we also have a number of people who go out and quite determinedly get absolutely wasted, and I think we've gotta turn that round.

GUYON And that’s a problem not only in criminality but in resources for the Police. I think you take something like 20,000 people home every year, or put them in the cells tonight to sober up I understand you are advocating sobering up centres if you like in Auckland and Wellington and some of the major cities.

HOWARD There used to be an offence called drunk in a public place, and that stopped in 1981, and the whole issue was supposed to go towards a harm reduction one, and the quid pro quo for losing the arrest for drunk power was that there would be these detoxification centres set up all round the country. Well not one has ever been set up. My staff have to deal with 40 people a day who are so drunk they cannot look after themselves, 300 offences a day we determine have as a primary driver, the abuse of alcohol.

GUYON So what sort of response are you getting from the government when you say hey look we'd like some detox centres thanks very much?

HOWARD Well we've put that not just this year, but in the past.

GUYON And no one's listening?

HOWARD And it has not happened, so we re-present this as an issue and we look forward to the Law Commission making its proposals and for the government to pick up on. It's 18% of a very large budget goes on dealing with alcohol issues.

GUYON And can I just end on a budget matter. Obviously you're a government agency, money's tight, there's no money. Are you telling Police Officers there's no pay rises for the next few years?

HOWARD They’ve been extremely well dealt with in the last few years as far as pay rise is concerned, they're well paid.

GUYON So no more money.

HOWARD There is no more money.

GUYON But for how long, how long?

HOWARD I'm not sure but we are planning to be very tight with our budget over the next few years. I think the government is making those noises very clear to those of us in the public sector.

GUYON So Police Officers watching this morning shouldn’t expect any pay rises for three years or so?

HOWARD I don’t necessarily say that, but I think time's are tight and that anything that comes through by way of a pay rise will have to be met with productivity increases and Police administration saying where are we gonna get this money from within the total Police budget.

GUYON You took this job in April 2006, it's a five year term. Next year do you still want another term at this?

HOWARD I suspect that this will be a conversation between the government and my partner. To be quite frank, it's a very demanding job, and I'll look forward to the result of that discussion with interest.

GUYON Sitting here now though do you think you’ve got an appetite for another term?

HOWARD It is a very demanding job, but it has probably got the most satisfaction of any job I could think of. I mean the mission of the New Zealand Police is just outstanding, and to be in charge of a workforce of 12,000 people who are so committed and so capable, it's absolutely a tremendous privilege.

GUYON It sounds like a yes. Thanks very much for joining us this morning Commissioner, we appreciate your time.

ENDS

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