Retail crime rate triple that of 2020, includes 2,373 cases of assaults against retail employees
New Zealand saw nearly 150,000 retail crimes in 2023, according to reports, with over 400 incidents a day.
The New Zealand Herald reported the stats on Wednesday citing police data obtained by the Dairy and Business Owners' Group on retail crime across the country.
The group found that there was a total of 148,599 crimes reported at retail locations, including dairies, bottle stores, pharmacies, service stations, shops, stores, supermarkets, salons, restaurants, cafes, bars, pubs, and shopping malls.
Sunny Kaushal, Dairy and Business Owners' Group chairman, said 2023 broke records for "all the wrong reasons."
"To provide a sense for how bad this is, that's nearly triple the 50,840 crimes reported in 2020 and is five times greater than in 2015," Kaushal told the New Zealand Herald.
"So, in less than a decade, law and order has gone to hell in a handbasket."
Crime data breakdown for retail
The data is equivalent to 12,383 retail offences reported each month, 2,850 a week, 407 a day, and 17 offences an hour, according to the Herald report.
By type, there were 2,373 cases of assaults against retail employees, including 393 that were classified as sexual assault and related offences. Another 1,980 were classified as "acts intended to cause injury" by the police.
Meanwhile, there were also 197 victims of retail crime each month in 2023, 45 a week, and six people a day.
Despite the staggering figures on retail crime, however, Kaushal noted that majority of these cases never reached the court.
"Only 8,352 criminals saw the inside of courtroom, meaning that 94% who bashed workers or stole from retailers did not," the chairman told the Midday Report.
Retail crime 'emergency'
Kaushal lamented that they have been living in fear knowing crimes against retail workers were taking place.
"I have been talking a lot over the years but the government of the day, taking to the ministry, but we've never been given seriously attention. We were just given surveys," Kaushal told Midday Report.
In 2023, the Dairy and Business Owners' Group called on the newly elected government to curb retail crime against New Zealand.
"We want the political parties that'll make up the new government to turn what they told us on the campaign trail into policy," Kaushal previously said in a statement.
According to the chair, the country's Crimes Act need serious fixing.
"We need citizen's arrest powers widened to daylight and doing that empowers shopkeepers to security guards," he said.
"We also need to define what reasonable force actually means when it comes to defending your own property. Australia has similar self-defence laws to ours, but they go that extra step. Here, you can barely touch someone stealing from you."
He underscored that the country's laws need to swing back to law-abiding citizens and not criminals.
"We need to act for a real change to take back our country and get it back on track. That starts by sorting out the crime emergency."
