Security expert links NZ retail crime spike to inflation

A senior executive at Optic Security Group has questioned how New Zealand's retail crime trend is being portrayed, arguing that recent figures have been inflated by changes in reporting rather than a sustained surge in offending.

Nicholas Dynon, the security provider's Group Brand Strategy & Innovation Director, made the comments in an RNZ radio interview as retailers and policymakers continue to debate ram raids, smash-and-grabs and shoplifting. Retail crime has featured prominently in political and media discussions since the pandemic, with retailers and industry bodies reporting a visible rise in incidents.

Dynon argued that the narrative of an "unprecedented" post-COVID crime wave overlooks well-established drivers of property crime. He linked higher retail offending to the economic environment, particularly periods of high inflation.

"Media reports and virtue signalling by political leaders point to NZ's post-COVID crime wave as being 'unprecedented', part of a 'new normal'," he said. "But it's not."

Inflation link

He pointed to academic research linking retail crime, along with property crime more broadly, to inflationary cycles. In that framing, the spike recorded in 2023 and 2024 reflects a recurring pattern rather than a structural shift in behaviour.

"A weighty body of academic research tells us that retail crime - or property crime more broadly - is associated with periods of high inflation," he said.

Dynon also linked pressure on household budgets to the behaviour of organised crime groups, which he said respond to cost-of-living conditions by stealing more goods and selling them at lower prices than legitimate retailers.

"We saw it in NZ with historically high inflation in 2023-24... and we saw the pattern with the 1991 recession and 2008 GFC. When there's a cost-of-living crisis, organised crime groups respond by stealing more items and selling them more cheaply than folk might pay for them over the counter," he said.

Reporting effect

While accepting that crime may have risen, Dynon said the recorded increase has been amplified by changes in how incidents are logged and counted. He pointed to efforts by the retail sector to encourage reporting, along with new tools that reduce friction for staff filing incident reports.

"In short, the numbers have likely been substantially inflated by (i) calls by retailer association Retail NZ for retailers to report more crime and sub-crime incidents, along with (ii) the rapid adoption of crime intelligence platform technologies, such as Auror, that make it much easier for stores to report," he said.

As a result, incidents that might once have been handled internally or ignored now appear in datasets used by industry groups, researchers and, in some cases, public agencies. Dynon described this as an "unnatural" effect on the trendline because the baseline reporting level has shifted.

He said under-reporting has long been an issue in retail crime, but warned that a rapid lift in reporting can distort comparisons with earlier years. "While the imperative of addressing chronic under-reporting of retail crime is a good thing, the problem is that it's skewed the stats," he said.

Policy responses

Retail crime concerns have prompted a series of responses in New Zealand, including policing initiatives, legislative debate and increased spending by retailers on security measures. Larger chains have trialled and expanded physical deterrents, monitoring tools and new forms of in-store surveillance.

Dynon said the perceived scale of the problem has influenced investment decisions. He also questioned the direction of those investments, including the use of biometric surveillance in supermarkets.

"Government and retailers alike have responded to the 'crime wave' with reactive legislation and investments in increasingly intrusive security technologies... such as the use of live facial recognition in supermarkets. Significant amounts of money - including taxpayers' - is being spent on the basis of misleading data," he said.

Calls for transparency

Dynon called for greater clarity about the methodologies behind crime and security incident reporting. He said organisations that publish statistics should be clearer about what is included, how data is collected, and any factors that could bias results.

He said that reporting and surveying methods, data selection, and potential conflicts of interest should be set out more explicitly, particularly when figures influence public spending, policing priorities, and retailer investment.

The interview also addressed the trajectory of retail crime since late 2024. Dynon said the trend has moderated, and attributed the shift to easing inflation rather than a sudden change in criminal behaviour or a permanent post-pandemic step-change.

"Yes, we've likely experienced a rise in retail crime, but the extent of it has been misrepresented by the statistics," he said. "And now we're seeing that the curve has been trending down since late 2024. Why?... inflation's been falling."

Optic Security Group operates across Australia and New Zealand and provides security risk management services to government and enterprise clients, including advisory services, physical security systems, and information security and resilience services.