Thinking about emigrating or vacationing in Marlborough, you may like to reconsider your decision when you hear about its crime problem, especially if you have children

According to an article in Stuff.co.nz

Nearly three thefts a day were reported to Marlborough police last year, new figures show. A breakdown of crime in the region shows people making calls to police last year were most likely the victims of theft, burglary or assault. The data, released by Statistics New Zealand, shows 966 thefts in 2015…

Burglary, or breaking and entering, was the second most common crime, with 720 victims last year in Marlborough. There were 492 victims of assault last year. More than half of those did not know their attacker.

Police have yet to make an arrest for the rape of a woman in Kaikoura in May last year after the village’s street lights were deliberately vandalised. The woman, who is in her early 20s was attacked as she walked home at around 6pm one evening. It is noticeable that the ‘cops corner’ column has disappeared from the Kaikoura Star newspaper. Have police given up asking for the public’s help, or are they just reluctant to report crime to the media for fear of creating too much alarm -especially among the tourists that the town relies on for its livelihood?

The Stuff article continued with the topics of child abuse and alcohol – problems that are not unique to Marlborough by any means. These are problems for much of New Zealand

There were 24 children aged 4 or younger who were assaulted from March to December last year. Marlborough Violence Intervention Project campaigner and former youth worker Ross Banbury said the statistic was likely “just the tip of the iceberg”.

“The womb and the home are meant to be the safest of places. In New Zealand they are the most unsafe places to be. Multitudes of assaults go unreported. It is an indictment on Blenheim and Marlborough as a community. It shows we have a very long way to go to become a safe and healthy place for our children.”

Abuse of alcohol was a huge contributing factor, Banbury said. “Years ago a concerted effort was made to reduce, and ultimately eliminate, smoking in New Zealand. Personally, I think we went for the wrong vice. While smoking is a massive health issue, it seldom caused violent assaults on our children the way alcohol does.” more here

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