A police operation aimed at getting guns out of the hands of organised criminals and gangs is quite rightly being extended, according to an expert on criminal behaviour.
Some of the guns police seized following a major operation in Auckland in February. Photo: Supplied / NZ Police
Operation Tauwhiro will run for another six months, with about 1000 guns taken out of the community, 865 arrests and nearly $5 million seized in the first six months it has been running.
In a statement on Friday, Police Commissioner Andrew Coster said that Tauwhiro is suppressing gang tensions by ensuring firearms-related violence receives immediate and focused attention.
University of Canterbury director of criminal justice Jarrod Gilbert said gun activity had escalated in recent years.
"Without question we've seen a growth in gang numbers coming off a fairly low base in the early 2000s," he said.
"And what that means is that in a crowded room, somebody invariably gets elbowed, and in the gang world, that means that the guns often come out."
He said there had been a number of recent high profile incidents of gangs shooting at each other and it was in nobody's interest that it continued.
"But the trick to that is to be as surgical as possible to target those groups that are exhibiting behaviour that is unacceptable to the community. And unfortunately, we've seen a few groups behaving that way. And those are the groups that tend to get pursued, quite rightly so."
Operation Tauwhiro will run until 1 March, 2022.
