Police are pleased to see an increase in trust and confidence in the latest annual Ministry of Justice New Zealand Crime and Victims Survey (NZCVS).

The Police Module, which measures the public’s perceptions, experiences, and views about police, saw public trust and confidence in the force rise from 67% to 69% between October 2023 and October 2024.

Acting Deputy Commissioner Mike Pannett said building and maintaining high trust and confidence within our communities was a police priority, and it was encouraging to see the numbers trending in the right direction.

Some of the other highlights from the findings include:

• 83% of the public believes police conduct their duties professionally
• 74% of respondents were either satisfied or very satisfied with the service they received from police.
• The proportion of people with no trust and confidence in police dropped from 3% to 2% - the lowest it has been since the creation of the Police Module.

“These numbers are the direct result of the hard work our staff put in every day when dealing with victims of crime,” Pannett said.

“They are dedicated and committed to preventing, investigating, and resolving crime across the country.

“While these results are encouraging, we know there is more work to do.

“We would like to see these numbers continue to increase as we want to have the trust and confidence of all New Zealanders.

“This survey has also given us sufficient data to assess areas where we need to continue to improve.

“One such area is looking at our visibility and deployment, with 58% of respondents agreeing or strongly agreeing that we have a suitable presence in their community. We would like to see that number increase.

“Police are continuing to work hard to recruit an additional 500 officers as part of the Government’s commitment to increase overall officer numbers, and these additional staff will make a difference in deterring crime, enforcing the law, and increasing feelings of public safety.

“We have extremely high standards for our organisation and every one of the 15,000 people in it.

“Overall, our other trust and confidence performance indicators within the Police Module saw positive movement in areas of police focus, such as response to serious crimes.”

The NZCVS and Police Module provide a credible source of information that can shape and direct future decisions within police, with the intention of building greater trust and confidence in communities.

The NZCVS was introduced in 2018 and aims to survey 7000 New Zealanders. The total number of responses for this round was 7705.