The number of reported gangsters in New Zealand has climbed 10 per cent in under a year, according to police data.

An April report from the Gang Harm Insights Centre says there are 8875 gang members spread across 33 gangs on police's National Gang List - NGL.

That figure is up 856, or 10.6 per cent, from August 2022, with 400 new members entering the list in 2023 alone.

National says the increase is evidence of a 'permissive environment” while Labour is pointing at legislation they've passed to target those members.

The regions with the highest number of members were Auckland, Bay of Plenty, and Hawke's Bay, with 1736, 1538, and 1367 on the list respectively.

However, those figures are problematic as those who leave gang life are slow to be removed with police not always aware in their change of lifestyle.

Gang funerals like this one pictured in Grey Lynn are a common sight in Auckland. (File photo) Jason Dorday/Stuff.

The numbers are released as part of a police effort to monitor gang harm and reduce it in society.

'The cycle of abuse and harm is evident in many gang families. Throughout their lifetime almost half of NGL members have been victims of family harm,” the gang harm report says.

'Gangs often provide a sense of family, brotherhood, status, and belonging and acceptance that were not fulfilled elsewhere.”

National's police spokesperson Mark Mitchell says it was easy for gangs to recruit when they were cashed up and could recruit from the kind of youth gangs who do ramraids.

Mark Mitchell says the increase in gang numbers was consistent with a permissive environment created under the Labour government. Photo: Tom Lee/Stuff.

'You've got to start putting pressure on gangs. You've got to start dismantling them,” he says.

Mitchell says Labour had created a 'permissive environment” for gangs to operate in.

He says a National government would look to bring back a three-strikes style, as well as a bringing in a wider social investment approach to combat the social causes.

Police Minister Ginny Andersen says the Government was backing police to keep gangs in check by giving them more tools.

Police minister Ginny Andersen says police's Operation Cobalt had brought 36,577 charges. Photo; Chris McKeen.

The Government has changed asset seizure laws targeting gangs, given police wider search powers relating to gangs and are set to bring in a gun registry.

'The government has also invested to get 700 new Police officers into Organised Crime roles, working to dismantle gangs and reduce the harm they cause,” she says.

Andersen also says that police's gang crackdown, known as Operation Cobalt, had brought 36,577 charges against members and their associates and seized 383 illegal guns.

'It is utterly unacceptable for gangs to threaten or intimidate our communities."

The National Gang List began collecting numbers on youth gang members in 2016, but did not add any until 2018, when one was recorded. By 2021, this number had grown to 47.

In 2016, there were 4420 gang members on the list, a figure which has grown by roughly 1000 every year.

James Halpin/Stuff