Continued strong growth in gang recruitment in New Zealand means gang members now narrowly outnumber police officers, despite Prime Minister Christopher Luxon promising this wouldn’t be allowed to happen.
As of this week, there were 10,475 police officers and 10,478 gang members.
Since the 2023 General Election, gang numbers have risen 13% – or 1208 more gang members.
Since November 2023, police have added just 264 extra staff.
PM grilled as data reveals there are more gang members than police officers – Watch on TVNZ+
Police have struggled to recruit 500 new officers as gang numbers have continued to swell. (Source: 1News)
In a 2023 election debate, Luxon was asked if the National Party would commit to ensuring, “New Zealand always has more sworn police officers than gang members, will you make that commitment to New Zealand right here right now?”
Luxon replied, “absolutely”.
1News asked Luxon today if this amounted to a broken promise.
“What I can tell you is that our commitment is that we are lowering crime and when you see violent serious crime coming down and that is because we’re tougher on gang members for sure, the effectiveness of gang members in prosecuting crime has been diminished by virtue of our actions – that is a good thing.
“The gang patch ban and other powers and actions by the police have actually made gangs much less visible in New Zealand and, actually, you’re seeing in a lessening of violent serious crime across the country.”
Police said there were 298 recruits currently training to become police officers.
Data from the Police Minister’s office showed that, when Labour came to power in 2017, there were 5343 individuals on the National Gang List.
By the 2023 election, there were 9270 — an increase of nearly 4000 over six years.
‘An absolute failure’ – Labour
Labour’s police spokesperson Ginny Andersen told 1News that National “has always talked a big game on law and order, but they’ve absolutely failed to deliver – and this is just evidence of that”.
“This is a broken promise from the Prime Minister. He said to New Zealanders there would always be more police officers than gang members. Today, we know there are now the opposite of that – more gangs than there are police.”
Andersen added that there was also a “huge spike” in methamphetamine and cocaine across the country.
“That is an absolute failure of this Government to deliver. They failed to deliver their 500 police and they’re failing to keep communities safe.”