16 May 2013
For immediate release

Police pursuit policy in need of urgent review

In the wake of a spate of police chases which have resulted in a needless loss of life, JustSpeak calls for the police pursuit policy to be revisited.

JustSpeak has serious concerns about the number of deaths and injuries that result from police pursuits, and does not believe that the costs and risks involved are justified. As an organisation of young people, JustSpeak is particularly distressed to note the young ages of many of the victims of these crashes. It is concerned about the relatively frequent use of police pursuits, particularly in light of the fact that most police pursuits are started over low-level traffic offending and few of them uncover evidence of serious crimes, as evident in IPCA statistics on police pursuits. In this regard, New Zealand Police Association vice-president Stuart Mills’ labelling of pursued drivers as “criminals” is misleading, inflammatory and insensitive.

JustSpeak believes that police should be exhausting all available alternatives before opting to pursue drivers, including noting the registration number of the offending vehicle and apprehending the driver at a later point. Any attempts to evade the police could be dealt with at the point of apprehension.

JustSpeak urges the Police to revisit and tighten the rules around police pursuits and to limit their use to pursuing people know to be violent offenders only. These limits have been put in place in overseas jurisdictions such as Tasmania, Queensland and Florida with encouraging results. Reviews of the restrictions show a reduced number of deaths and injuries, and no correlation to increased crime levels. JustSpeak believes New Zealand’s current pursuit policy has fallen behind international best practice, and should brought in line with it.

Police pursuits are inherently dangerous for all parties involved. It is imperative that we re-evaluate and limit their use to avoid further tragedies.
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