Thirty percent of police pursuits conducted in the past year have been abandoned, with offenders evading capture.
The figures have been exposed in answers to Parliamentary written questions, which showed that 547 of the almost 1900 car pursuits were abandoned.
The figures also suggest the average response time to the emergency calls has worsened since an external review was carried out six months ago.
National Party Law and Order spokesman Simon Power says it is an unsatisfactory level. He says the public needs to be assured that officers are being adequately trained for pursuits, and that offenders are being caught at a later time.
National's law and order spokesman Simon Power says it appears no progress has been made.
He says it is now taking an extra four minutes for police to respond to emergency calls, which is a major blow to public confidence. The review followed the handling of the case of missing Auckland model Iraena Asher.
Police Dispute
The Deputy Police Commissioner is disputing the new figures. Deputy Commissioner Steve Long says the figures have been skewed by a non-priority job in Counties-Manukau, which was miscoded as a top priority.
He says the actual average response time is 12 minutes.
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