The ACT Party is blaming a spike in crime at supermarkets on the Government's plan to reduce the prison population.
Data collected from New World, PAK'nSAVE and Four Square stores, and released on Wednesday, found a 38.2 percent increase in retail crime between February and April this year - an average of 37 crimes a day.
Chief executive of Foodstuffs North Island Chris Quin said store owners have "never seen retail crime at these levels".
"It's an extremely concerning trend and it's unacceptable," Quinn said.
He said in one case, a repeat offender stole 31 whole eye, scotch, and sirloin fillets over several weeks - costing the supermarket almost $3200.
Increasing crime has been a thorn in the Government's side of late and this is no different, with ACT leader David Seymour lashing out at the Prime Minister on Wednesday.
"The fact a supermarket chain is having to put these figures out shows how bad things have got. I would say it's the dangerous side of Jacinda's kindness, but also Chris Hipkins's incompetence," Seymour told AM Early host Nicky Styris.
"This Government came in promising to let 30 percent of prisoners out. They've reduced the prison population by more than that and when you let criminals out of jail, guess what? You get more crime."
Since Labour came into Government in 2017, the prison population peaked in 2018 at just under 11,000 and it has currently dropped by about 2300, according to the Department of Corrections.
Another alarming statistic coming out of the Foodstuff data was 36 percent of all crime is undertaken by repeat offenders, with the number of reported repeat offenders increasing by 34 percent from 2022.
It's not just supermarkets repeat offenders are targeting either, it's all retail crime. Statistics published by the Ministry of Justice in February showed 61 percent of people in prison will reoffend within two years of getting out and 49 percent will be re-imprisoned within two years of release.
Following the release of the Foodstuff data, ACT released a press release outlining how they would tackle retail crime if elected into power at this year's election.
ACT says it would review the use of electronic monitoring for violent offenders, abolish the prison population reduction target, build more prison beds so that serious offenders are put behind bars, bring back three strikes for violent offenders, and a separate three-strikes regime for burglary offences.
Seymour said ACT's approach is a change away from the current "free-for-all" system, to an approach of cracking down and being tougher on criminals.
"This is a shift away from what we have now, which is a free-for-all to a place where there are rights for people who follow the law. Consequences for people who don't. So we shouldn't be putting people out on electronic monitoring when they re-offending," he said
"They shouldn't be people who have offended multiple times, who just keep getting let off scot-free because that is what's causing the problem."
Seymour is calling for change and a tougher approach, as he believes criminals currently feel "no one can touch them".
"There should be rights for these people who work in a supermarket, often really nice people who work long hours for little pay and now being on the front line, potentially getting assaulted. They deserve some rights," he said.
"The other people who are doing this deserve some consequences, and that's why ACT says we would increase prison capacity, we'd take youth offending off Oranga Tamariki and put it into corrections, so ultimately there's a consequence these criminals don't want. Right now, they feel no one can touch them."
Watch the full interview with David Seymour in the video above.
