There are fewer crimes in Auckland's central city than last year or five years ago, but a moral panic can take effect, writes Timothy Welch
Comment: Crime is spiralling out of control in Aotearoa’s mega-city: Everywhere residents look, a new crime or indecent act is being committed. Or so the headlines will tell you. As recently as last week, a headline reported that crime in Auckland was reaching levels akin to the 1980s in New York City.
Here’s the thing about crime in Auckland’s CBD. It’s visible, it’s in your face, it’s easy to photograph and report on, but it’s no worse than it was in past years. The pandemic has perhaps pushed acts of crime to the streets and added eyes to those streets on a more consistent basis, but the numbers – as reported by the police – don’t indicate a significant uptick in crime.
The alleged crime spree is an easy one to fact check. We don’t need to deploy the usual statistical analysis. Instead, a simple chart and a few numbers tell the whole story. To put it simply, crime in the Auckland CBD is lower now than it was a year ago and lower still than it was five years ago.
In September of this year, there were a total of 389 crimes (as measured in victimisations) of all types in the CBD compared to a year ago when there were 658 crimes reported, that’s a reduction of more than 40 percent. Violent crimes, those involving bodily harm, were down almost 23 percent from September 2020 to the same month in 2021.
The feeling of increased crime may not be wholly imagined. Crime was up slightly compared to previous years, starting from October 2020 and stretching to Auckland’s lockdown and violent crime was up significantly over the same period.
Overall, the numbers are low, so what is causing a sudden feeling or more crime happening? Part of it may be that many more CBD residents spend a more significant portion of their days in their homes with more time looking out windows and seeing things they would typically not witness while away at work. Or it may be that as we read more reports of crimes, we feed ourselves a narrative that more crime is occurring.
The belief that crime is spiralling and subsequent media reports to the same effect are nothing new. The London Crime Wave of 1774 is perhaps the first recorded event where widespread reporting on a series of highly visible street robberies garnered the attention of one of London’s most prominent newspapers.
While the historical record is long gone as to whether there was a significant uptick in crime, evidence suggests the few well-reported crimes were primarily the work of a single gang. With a lack of other exciting news to report, the newspaper started to describe London as infested with criminals.
Moral panics follow a familiar pattern. First, a threat is identified, then the threat is amplified by the media. Next, a widespread sense of public concern spreads. In response, the government frames the supposed threat as symptomatic of a larger societal issue that must be addressed. Finally, regulations are put in place that typically long outlast the original cause of concern.
New measures were adopted to fight this perceived crime spree. In response, gang members were publicly executed, but as 1774 came to a close, the media had already moved on to other topics and these executions weren’t even reported by any of the metropolitan London newspapers.
The London Crime Spree of 1774 certainly felt real to Londoners at the time. The widespread reporting of spiralling crime helped feed a narrative that was entirely exaggerated. There have been many moral panics over the years from the American War on Drugs, the Australian ‘boat people’ crisis, the perception of crime around public transportation and New Zealand’s Juvenile Delinquency crisis in the 1950s.
At the moment, it may feel that crime in Auckland’s CBD is out of control, but the reality is the city is as safe as it’s always been, if not safer. With a population of 40,000 people, in September of this year, there was a less than 1 in 10,000 chance of falling victim to a crime and a 1 in 50,000 chance of falling victim to a violent crime. To put this in perspective, you are almost six times more likely to suffer a dog bite. It appears Auckland’s spiral into a crime infested city is nothing to panic about.
