Blair MacDonald: Superintendent addresses confusion caused by police shoplifting memo changes

Police say they can't get to all retail crime - after revelations revealed they won't investigate some lower-level crimes. 

RNZ reports staff have been directed to not investigate shoplifting below $500 dollars and online fraud below $1000 dollars. 

Police say they may not take a further look into crime below the threshold - and lacking evidence. 

Superintendent Blair Macdonald says his team get 90,000 reports every month - and explained they try to judge where officers can prevent the most amount of harm to the public.     

LISTEN ABOVE

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Good afternoon. Retailers are asking the Police Minister for an
urgent meeting after a revelation that cops are no longer
investigating fraud and theft crimes below a certain level. So
a memo was sent to police staff two months ago
showing police will no longer attend shoplifting incidents where the
value is below five hundred dollars, gas theft incidents as
in petrol theft incidents of less than one hundred and

(00:20):
fifty dollars, and won't investigate online scams below one thousand dollars.
Superintendent Blair MacDonald is the Police Director of Service, Hay Blair, Kyoder,
Why are you guys doing this?

Speaker 2 (00:31):
Well, look, we're actually not changing anything. Look, unfortunately, there's
been some confusion with this memo that went out so effectively,
the memo was written specifically for people, in this case
my staff, who actually are triarging all of the files
that come into the organization. Now, if this information, if

(00:54):
I had of intended for that memo to be made
public or to be presented in a public way, it
would have been worded a very different way.

Speaker 1 (01:02):
Right, But you're still doing this, right, you are not.
You're clearly not going to investigate any shoplifting with the
value is below five hundred bucks.

Speaker 2 (01:08):
Yes, no, no, So that is incorrect. So what I
really want to re ensure that reassure all of the
listeners out there today that police will absolutely still be
investigating shoplifting retail theft where there is clear evidence of offending.
So for example, where we have identified an offender, we've
got great CCTV footage or vehicles identified, et cetera. What

(01:32):
the memo was directing my staff to do was to
create a consistent excuse me, threshold for our staff to
be able to assign these cases onto the districts.

Speaker 1 (01:43):
When assessing files with these offenses, you will apply the
relevant value threshold and file any file under that threshold
regardless of any lines of inquiry, which is to say,
regardless of any lines of inquiry, it's not going to
be investigated, isn't Isn't that what it's saying.

Speaker 2 (02:00):
Well, that is true, But what you need to appreciate
is that we have groups like the Retail Crime Group
who are actually looking across all of these files. Now,
certainly I do not disagree that when a file is
filed it is what it says on the can. It's filed.
But if more evidence comes to light, or we identify
a series or a pattern of offending when it comes

(02:22):
to read, we can.

Speaker 1 (02:23):
Reacalivate these guys are filing it. They're filing it regardless
of whether there's lines of inquiry. They're putting it away.
It's never going to see the light of day again.
It's gone.

Speaker 2 (02:34):
Well, no, that's not true at all. So the filing
part is absolutely true. But what you need to appreciate
this is going into our national intelligence application, and we
have intelligence teams that are looking at these files daily
and that's the whole point, right, so they are able
to detect these trends and patterns, so we can identify
the significant people who are offending in this area.

Speaker 1 (02:56):
So what you're seeing is patterns and stuff. What if
you were running the shop, We're four hundred and fifty
dollars worth of stuff just got nicked and that got filed.
It's it's surely of very little, you know, like assistance
to you that somewhere may form a pattern. They want
that filed out with right there and not just put away.
But it's been put away, isn't it.

Speaker 2 (03:17):
Yeah, Look, I can completely understand and look, in an
ideal world, you know, our organization would be able to
investigate every single reported offense that comes in the door.
But as I said to you earlier, look, you know
my team alone deal with one point twenty five million.
Now that is ninety thousand offenses every single month. Now,
the reality is we just can't get to that fair enough.

(03:37):
And about our assessment process, Yeah, so I'm part of
our assessment process, right, we try and judge, Okay, where
can we investigate that's going to prevent the most amount
of or prevent the most amount of harm and put
risk to our members of the public. And this is
just one tool in that process.

Speaker 1 (03:54):
Do you worry though, that now that this information is
out there, the recidivists are going to know, right, if
they do five dollars and less of shoplifting, they'll get
away with it. If they drive away with less than
one hundred and fifty bucks worth of petrol, they'll get
away with it.

Speaker 2 (04:07):
Yeah, well it's a fair assumption, right, But again I
come back to that's where we're lucky, right, we have
good tools, good systems, good processes in place where we've
got some very clever people looking for all of that.
The Aura platform, for example, captures a fantastic CCTV imagery
which allows these investigation teams to connect the dots and
so look, you know that's that again. You spoke to

(04:29):
Matt earlier last week, his retail crime grip do some
fantastic work in that space, and just to give you
an example of his numbers, because I know he didn't
get to share them, but between twenty two and twenty
twenty four, we actually increase the identification of offending in
this space by thirty five percent. And how much we
went from you, So I don't have that exact data

(04:53):
what to do?

Speaker 1 (04:53):
Focused on the wrong thing. Yeah, I mean, I'm stoked
that you guys are doing all this other stuff and
you've got cool little systems and stuff. That means nothing
to me. I want you to solve the crimes. How
many of these crimes are you solving? It'll be pitdly
amount day.

Speaker 2 (05:08):
Look again, sorry, I actually couldn't tell you off there.
That's a little bit outside my swim lane. We're busy
at the business end managing the information, and then districts
of course are out there doing the investigations.

Speaker 1 (05:19):
All right, Blair, listen, Thank you very much for your
time appreciated. It's Superintendent Blair McDonald, Police Director of Service.

Speaker 2 (05:25):
For more from Heather Duplessy Allen Drive Listen live to
news talks.

Speaker 1 (05:29):
It'd be from four pm weekdays, or follow the podcast
on iHeartRadio