Commander Tania Kura promises better deals for victims

Victims are being promised a better deal in a new era of policing in Hawke's Bay after the arrival of the area's first female police commander.

Inspector Tania Kura, who arrived last year to merge the Eastern Police District's Napier and Hastings area commands, said the area should be celebrating "fewer victims."

She said there would be more focus on victims.

"We are really focusing on a whole-of-policing approach," she said.

Police officer spent more time on the streets getting closer to the community. "I don't want them inside," she said.

Napier barrister and Law Society Hawke's Bay branch spokesman Jonathan Krebs said arrest rates "seem to have reduced."

The jury was still out on whether that's the result of arrest policies or any reduction in crime, but Mr Krebs said that from a lawyer's point of view policing in Hawke's Bay appeared to be "in good heart," with staff with long-standing experience in the area.

Napier Mayor Barbara Arnott, who has kept in close touch with the police command in her 12 years in office, said police had a "hard job" but there was a uniqueness in Hawke's Bay with the strength in assistance from the people, and organisations such as Neighbourhood Support and Community Patrol.

"It is no coincidence that we have the best in the country, which I think is because of the connectivity," she said.

"I really do believe that.

"Napier is a city small enough to look after it's own, and we do that," she said. "I think she (Ms Kura) will find that Napier is a wee bit different than a lot of other places."

The focus on victims goes much further than simply ensuring that victims are better supported, but also works on the philosophy that crime and other safety issues can can evolve from the victim situations, as with domestic violence.

It means getting closer to the communities, and while Ms Kura shares a dream with many of her 200-plus staff that the outdated stations in Napier will be replaced, most officers will spend little time in any new offices.

Their two police stations are too old, she said, in the more spacious surrounds of Eastern Police District headquarters, around the corner from her own office in the Napier Police Station.

"The state of the buildings causes me concern," she said. "I'd love two new buildings."

With replacement of government buildings prioritised, particularly since the Canterbury earthquakes, it's a case of being in the queue, but she said: "We're working on it."

The Napier station is now the oldest of the stations built by the Ministry of Works in cities around the country in the 1960s era.

It opened in June 1962, the Hastings station opened in 1968, and questions are being asked by some as to why, for example, the Rotorua station - near identical and opened in 1969 - is already demolished, making way for an $18 million Rotorua station and Bay of Plenty district headquarters.

The comment that "today's station might not be tomorrow's" seems to go further than referring simply to the bricks and mortar, for "it's a work in progress" as technology and systems advance at pace, to the stage where the officers can access knowledge they need on patrol, and input the details the technology requires, without having to sit at a desk.

The change, Ms Kura said, was a "challenge" to staff, but added: "I'm sure staff are up for it."

Some change is more conspicuous than other change, as was the case recently with the apparent vacation of the Ahuriri police base. It's not "closed," she said, it's just that the Ahuriri constable who was sometimes seconded to duties in the Napier CBD is now primarily based in the CBD, sometimes detailed to do the rounds in Ahuriri.

Essentially, there are no other changes in store for community policing, but she said that, like all aspects, it's under constant review.

Among other changes, perhaps a pointer to what the future stations might look like, is that there are now no officers specifically in charge of the Napier or Hastings stations.

The hierarchy now include a "2IC" in Inspector Andy Sloan, nine senior sergeants, with five as "shift commanders" operating between cities, in Hastings' case including Central Hawke's Bay.

Ms Kura succeeded the previously separate Napier and Hastings area commanders, Inspectors Kevin Kalff, who has retired, and Dean Clifford, who is now based at the district headquarters.

She had been based in Wellington, to where partner Inspector Dave Archibald commutes for his job at the Royal Police College.