POLICE REDUCTIONS.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume VII, Issue 1151, 19 October 1880, Page 2

POLICE REDUCTIONS.

I In view of the police reductions, a few figures from the annual report on j the New Zealand Constabulary may be T interesting. The force is now divided into two branches, which we may term 3 civil and military, the whole being under the command of Lieut. -Col. Reader. The civil force is under the 5 charge of three superintendents ; the V North Island under Superintendent s Shearman ; Canterbury and Westland . under Superintendent Broham ; and i Otago and Southland under Superintendent Weldon. Superintendent Shear- ] man has his division divided into nine ! districts Wellington, Hawke's Bay, j Tauranga, Thames, Auckland, Taranaki, c Wanganui, Nelson, and Mai*lborough. s These districts have been under the ■- direct responsibility of sub-inspectors. The return of the strength and distribue tion of the Northern Division shows a 100 police stations and 251 men, who | s are divided into 52 officers and non- • t} commissioned officers, 10 detectives, } and 189 constables. Taking the popu- } lation to be 254,620, it will give one r member of the force to every 1014 of c the population, and the cost of main- .. tenance is about 3s. 6d per head per i . annum. The criminal statistics in this a division in 1878 shows that 7127 offences . came to the knowledge of the police ; c whilst in 1879 there were 8204 reported, i showing an increase of 1077 on the d previous year. From the report we . gather that the total force of the civil a police numbers 518 men, consisting of t 24 officers, .87 non-commissioned officers, .. 21 detectives, and 386 constables. „ According to this it would appear that s there is one officer or non-commissioned r officer to every four constables in the 1 force ; but there is' no mention of this fact in the report furnished. It will .. be seen, therefore, that Government 0 have some grounds for the charges now being made.