Police Commissioner Andrew Coster has this week confirmed further details around the allocation of the 500 additional officers following funding from Budget 2024.

“I’m pleased to confirm that the deployment of extra constabulary resource will have a clear focus on public safety, specifically through Community Beat Teams, the National Gang Unit, and Gang Disruption Units,” said Commissioner Coster.

Budget 2024 delivered $191 million over four years to recruit and retain these extra Police officers and $34.6 million in capital to equip them.

“As part of our long-term planning, we have been considering how to best deploy these additional staff.

Community reassurance and visibility, and tackling gangs, are two of our main priorities,” said Commissioner Coster.

“We are putting these additional officers where the need is greatest.

“Having more officers on the beat is important for deterring crime and increasing feelings of public safety.

“A further 70 officers will be allocated to Community Beat Teams to ensure staff are highly visible across the country, building on the good results we’ve already seen with the three teams in Auckland, Wellington, and Christchurch.

“This will bring the total deployment allocated to Community Beat Teams across the country to 160 officers and will see Beat Teams operating across every police district.

“I know this will be welcome news in our cities and towns across New Zealand.

We have already seen great success from our Community Beat Teams and are looking to continue that momentum across the country.

“In addition, 77 staff will be focused specifically on tackling gangs through allocations to the National Gang Unit and frontline Gang Disruption Units, which will be established across the country – concentrated in areas with the highest gang activity.

Bolstering our numbers in this area will support us to continue to reduce fear and intimidation in our communities caused by gangs and disrupt their criminal activity.

“Those 77 are additional officers from the 500, but total staff in Gang Disruption Units will end up larger than this through the repurposing of some existing positions, once a full demand profile is completed.

“The National Gang Unit supports districts to plan and coordinate operational activity, share intelligence and good practice.

The Gang Disruption Units will be focussed on gang enforcement, and in particular enforcing the new gangs legislation when it comes into effect.

“Police continue to work hard and have a strong focus on disrupting and holding offenders to account for crimes committed by gang members and their associates, Operation Cobalt has reached a milestone of over 97,625 charges laid against gang members and associates, and 129,753 traffic infringements issued.”

The remaining 263 positions will increase resource in Public Safety Teams (Police’s frontline responders), youth policing, and fill vacancies across districts from establishing the Tactical Response Model (Offender Prevention Teams and Tactical Dog Teams) that focus on apprehending our highest risk offenders to keep staff our communities safe.

“Our recruitment efforts are continuing to ramp up to deliver on this programme of work, and applications are trending upwards.

“With a total of 1371 applications in July 2024, that was the highest numbers of applications for any month since our national database was created in 2014.

“For comparison July of 2023 only had 351 applications.

“This allocation has taken into account feedback from frontline staff and areas of public concern and are subject to change.

In those locations that haven’t received more resource you should still expect to see an increase in visibility,” said Coster.