Mike Pannett: Acting Deputy Commissioner on the rise in public confidence and trust in police

It's thought Police efforts to get back to their roots is connecting with New Zealanders. 

Data from the latest Crime and Victims Survey suggests public confidence and trust has risen to 69%. 

Acting Deputy Commissioner Mike Pannett told Mike Hosking there's been a concerted effort to get back to basics and ensure things are done well. 

He says measures like the Community Beat programme is proof of efforts to increase officer visibility and public reassurance. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Got a new Ministry of Justice. Victims of Crime Survey
approval ratings for the police have increased a couple of
places to sixty nine percent. Now the Police Acting Deputy
Commissioner Mike Pennetts, where there's Mike.

Speaker 2 (00:09):
Morning, Good morning Mike.

Speaker 1 (00:10):
Now the numbers are the numbers. We feel, I think
most of us that things have changed, the approaches different,
crime is coming down. Do you see and feel that yourself,
even if you didn't have a survey.

Speaker 2 (00:21):
Yes, we are seeing and feeling it, and we're feeling
that that change in the environment. But the survey is
actually reinforcing those feelings, which is really important to us.

Speaker 1 (00:32):
Is it fair to say most of us never actually
deal with the police and therefore this is just observation
And if it's just observation, what does it mean.

Speaker 2 (00:42):
Look one hundred percent that the vast majority of the
public Zealand don't deal with police on a day to
day basis. This is observation, but it's observation from people
in their homes over a period of time that reflect
their interactions and their perceptions of what police are and
what we are doing.

Speaker 1 (01:00):
The seventy four percent who were either satisfied or very
satisfied with the service they received when they did in
fact contact you. So this is real contact. Is that
that specific customer feedback? And what's that tell you?

Speaker 2 (01:14):
That tells us that we're starting to get and furing
in our public interaction and service is good and improving.
Don't get us wrong. We have a long way to go,
and continuing to build trust and confidence in the community
is absolutely vital to us.

Speaker 1 (01:30):
Indeed, so that the people who don't get what they
wanted in an interaction like that, would that be the
lower level stuff and they're frustrated and there wasn't the
resource or they ever rang back or whatever.

Speaker 2 (01:41):
Yeah, look, absolutely that can be the case. And you
know there are people that are satisfied with the way
they have in direction with the police, and that's to
be expected.

Speaker 1 (01:52):
Is there a conversation there? The reason I asked the question,
is the a conversation there around expectation? It's the old
one one One thing my summation of the police is
in a disaster, you're there. If I've got to cut
up a tree, maybe you're not in my I might
need to lie my expectations on what you're actually there
to do.

Speaker 2 (02:08):
Yeah, and that comes back to the initiative. You're seeing
with our poor policing, we're actually going back to those
basics and doing what we do and doing it well.
Being visible. You've seeing it with the community Beat policing initiatives.
You'll see it with our increased community reassurance focus as well.
It's being visible, it's interacting and making every interaction with

(02:29):
their public account.

Speaker 1 (02:30):
All right, We'll keep up the good word. Mike Pennetts
of the Police. For more from the Mic Asking Breakfast,
listen live to news talks. It'd be from six am weekdays,
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