Police will no longer be investigating allegations of shoplifting below $500, petrol drive-offs below $150, and online frauds below $1000. Photo: RNZ / Richard Tindiller
Police have confirmed that staff have been directed not to investigate shoplifting of goods worth less than $500, saying they have to prioritise with the resources they have.
As reported by RNZ last week the police directive to staff says they will no longer be investigating allegations of shoplifting below $500, petrol drive-offs below $150, and online frauds below $1000 regardless of lines of inquiry as part of a new nation-wide directive.
Speaking to Checkpoint this evening, director of service Superintendent Blair MacDonald admitted the directive was valid.
"We only have so much resource, so we have to prioritise the work that comes in through the door and that's a challenge. Each district has to make a choice."
MacDonald said while police might not be able to attend incidents in person, reports of crimes - including car registrations, photos and CCTV footage - may help to solve bigger crimes down the track, and all reports would be 'filed' or 'parked' for the future.
"We continue to encourage everyone to report offending to us, because even if we can't get to it today, you just don't know how important that might be further on down the track."
He said the financial thresholds helped staff "triage" crime and police resources.
"We'd love to be able to get to everything, but unfortunately that's just not the world we all live in."
MacDonald said it was mainly business as usual for police.
"We've tweaked the thresholds to make my staff slightly more efficient as they're assigning cases coming through."
Police have conceded the wording of the directive "could have been clearer".
The directive said "nationally standardised value thresholds" would be used when assessing theft and fraud files from 26 March.
Retail crime group chair Sunny Kaushal told RNZ earlier today that retailers would be "deeply concerned" by the directive.
He said similar approaches had "disastrous consequences" overseas, including in the US and UK.
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