Counties Manukau, Waikato and Bay of Plenty have reported the most assaults on police officers compared to other regions.

Police health and safety data released to Newstalk ZB under the Official Information Act shows those districts have reported at least 100 assaults yearly since 2021.

In the past four years, there were 453 assaults in Counties Manukau, 465 in Waikato and 549 in Bay of Plenty.

Other districts had less than 100 assaults reported yearly.

Total assaults on officers across the country were at least 950 incidents yearly since 2020, and rose to more than 1000 from 2022.

A spokesperson says police are aware of the dangers their staff faces daily and their safety is a top priority for leaders.

“It’s our responsibility to ensure our people get home safely every night to their families, and we are constantly looking at ways to enhance the safety of our staff, through improved tactics and training."

Police say the higher number of assaults in those districts could be due to several reasons, including population size, the number of officers working there, how many callouts they respond to, and the number of public interactions.

Police Association president Chris Cahill says those have been identified as high-risk districts due to the number of gang members and firearm incidents.

Police Association president Chris Cahill. Photo / Mark Mitchell.

“They are three of our high-risk districts that we monitor closely to see what the changing risks are for our members there.”

Cahill claims they’ve also seen a growing defiance of police in different parts of the country in recent years.

“The key message I get from our members is people are more willing to assault police officers, are more willing to confront them and are less compliant.”

Cahill also has concerns about the health and safety data, claiming it's significantly underreported compared to a different police data they refer to.

“If police will have processes in place to manage the health and safety risk, they should have the correct data.

“The figures in the police data are double those numbers, so it’s a much more significant risk that requires a different approach,” says Cahill.

A police spokesperson says the health and safety data was gathered from its internal system where employees or supervisors could report an incident, but this was not linked to its operational data.

-Bay of Plenty Times.