Retail NZ is still waiting to meet with Police Minister Mark Mitchell, after calling for an urgent meeting about the directive. Photo: RNZ / Calvin Samuel
A retail group says it accepts police don't have the resources to investigate every report of crime.
A recent memo directed police staff not to investigate crimes under a certain value, such as shoplifting allegations under $500.
Police clarified this was not a firm rule and that investigations were triaged on a combination of value and solvability.
"We're pleased that the police have clarified there isn't a hard and fast rule against investigating these lower value crimes ... Ideally we would have the police turning out to every report of crime but we understand they just don't have the resources to be able to do that," Retail NZ advocacy manager Ann-Marie Johnson said.
Johnson told Morning Report the police's approach to investigating retail crime was why all offences needed to be reported.
She said shoplifting was often committed by repeat offenders.
"We know who the offenders are, the police know who they, are but they often need to build up that pattern and number of offences to be able to take a prosecution."
Johnson had called for an urgent meeting with Police Minister Mark Mitchell, which she said was yet to be scheduled.
"We meet with Minister Mitchell fairly regularly anyway to keep him updated on our views on retail crime, so we'd expect we'll be seeing him fairly shortly," she said.
Mitchell earlier said he was "always available and happy to meet with Retail NZ".
"They are an important partner in the outstanding efforts being put in by all stakeholders including police in dealing with all forms for retail crime. Police will obviously speak to operational matters."
On Friday, police national retail investigation support manager Matt Tierney confirmed the police approach to reports of lower-level crime were being standardised, "ensuring more consistency nationwide" and freeing up frontline staff to focus on "the most significant incidents and prolific offenders."
There was no change to the way police assessed and responded to reports of "lower-level crime", he said.
Tierney said that if a 111 call was placed regarding an incident such as shoplifting which had just occurred, and the offender was still there or had only just left, this had always been - and would continue to be prioritised for dispatch by police.
"This means that, pending availability, officers will typically be immediately dispatched. This is regardless of the value of goods taken.
"However, the reality is that police cannot attend every such report right away - but we need people to keep reporting incidents to us, so we continue to have a picture of when and where offending is occurring."
He said the public could "rest assured" that each report had always been, and would continue to be, assessed on its individual merits.
Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero, a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
