Throughout this time he has also led Police’s COVID-19 response and he is overseeing a major expansion of Te Pae Oranga (community panels) that seeks to keep low-level offenders out of the criminal justice system.
In 2020 Commissioner Coster introduced three new priorities to the New Zealand Police: Be first, then do (strengthening how and who we are as an organisation); Deliver the services New Zealanders expect and deserve (understanding and providing what the public want from their police); and focused prevention through partnerships (focused police effort and working with others to achieve better outcomes).
In 2021 Commissioner Coster launched an Organised Crime Strategy to address organised crime, its social drivers and the harm it causes. This strategy has seen national operations underway targeting unlawful behaviour and firearms-related violence by gangs and organised crime groups.
Commissioner Coster’s Police career spans more than 24 years and has a strong history of accomplishments following his graduation from Police College in 1997, including serving in frontline and investigative roles in Counties Manukau and Auckland.
Before being appointed as Commissioner, he was acting Deputy Commissioner: Strategy & Partnerships. In the period immediately after the tragic terror events in Christchurch, he oversaw the development of the Government’s firearms reforms, including the ban on semi-automatic firearms.
Commissioner Coster has worked in a variety of Police leadership roles that have taken him around New Zealand, including Area Commander in Auckland City Central and District Commander for the Southern Police District.
He was appointed Assistant Commissioner, Strategy and Transformation in 2015, providing leadership and co-ordination for Police’s largest IT project of the decade – the replacement of the organisation’s HR and payroll system. He also spent some time as acting Deputy Commissioner: Resource Management.
Commissioner Coster has a Bachelor of Laws (Honours) from the University of Auckland and a Master of Public Management from Victoria University of Wellington. He has been a Solicitor in the Office of the Crown Solicitor in Auckland, and was seconded to the Ministry of Justice as Deputy Chief Executive in 2016. At the Ministry he led the development of a five-year plan to modernise courts and tribunals, before returning to Police.
According to Uniform Crime Report statistics compiled by the FBI, there were 995.9 violent crimes per 100,000 people reported in the District of Columbia in 2018. The District also reported 4,373.8 property crimes per 100,000 during the same period.[9]
The average violent crime rate in the District of Columbia from 1960 through 1999 was 1,722 violent crimes per 100,000 population,[10] and violent crime, since peaking in the mid-1990s, decreased by 62.5% in the 1995–2018 period (property crime decreased 54.0% during the same period). However, violent crime is still more than twice the national average rate of 368.9 reported offenses per 100,000 people in 2018.[11]
In the early 1990s, Washington, D.C., was known as the nation’s “murder capital”,[12] experiencing 482 homicides in 1991.[2] The elevated crime levels were associated with the introduction of crack cocaine during the late 1980s and early 1990s. The crack was brought into Washington, D.C. by Colombian cartels and sold in drug markets such as “The Strip” (the largest in the city) located a few blocks north of the United States Capitol.[13] A quarter of juveniles with criminal charges in 1988 tested positive for drugs.[12]
After the 1991 peak there was a downward trend through to the late 1990s.[14] In 2000, 242 homicides occurred,[15] and the downward trend continued in the 2000s. In 2012, Washington, D.C. had only 92 homicides in 91 separate incidents, the lowest annual tally since 1963.[16] The Metropolitan Police Department’s official tally is 88 homicides, but that number does not include four deaths that were ruled self-defense or justifiable homicide by citizen.[16] The cause of death listed on the four case records is homicide and MPD includes those cases in tallying homicide case closures at the end of the year.[16]
As Washington neighborhoods undergo gentrification, crime has been displaced further east. Crime in neighboring Prince George’s County, Maryland, initially experienced an increase, but has recently witnessed steep declines as poorer residents moved out of the city into the nearby suburbs.[17] Crime has declined both in the District and the suburbs in recent years. There was an average of 11 robberies each day across the District of Columbia in 2006 which is far below the levels experienced in the 1990s.[18]
In 2008, 42 crimes in the District were characterized as hate crimes; over 70% of the reports classified as hate crimes were a result of a bias against the victim’s perceived sexual orientation.[19] Those findings continue the trend from previous years, although the total number of hate crimes is down from 57 in 2006,[20] and 48 in 2005.[21] By 2012, the number of hate crimes reported were 81, and dropped to 70 in 2013.[22]
| Year | Violent crime | Change | Property crime | Change |
| 1995 | 2,661.4 | – | 9,512.1 | – |
| 1996 | 2,469.8 | −7.1% | 9,426.9 | −0.9% |
| 1997 | 2,024.0 | −18% | 7,814.9 | −17% |
| 1998 | 1,718.5 | −15% | 7,117.0 | −8.9% |
| 1999 | 1,627.7 | −5.3% | 6,439.3 | −9.5% |
| 2000 | 1,507.9 | −7.4% | 5,768.6 | −10.4% |
| 2001 | 1,602.4 | 6.3% | 6,139.9 | 6.4% |
| 2002 | 1,632.9 | 1.9% | 6,389.4 | 4.1% |
| 2003 | 1,624.9 | −0.5% | 5,863.5 | −8.2% |
| 2004 | 1,371.2 | −15.6% | 4,859.1 | −17.1% |
| 2005 | 1,380.0 | 0.6% | 4,489.8 | −7.6% |
| 2006 | 1,508.4 | 9.3% | 4,653.8 | 3.7% |
| 2007 | 1,414.3 | −6.2% | 4,913.9 | 5.6% |
| 2008 | 1,437.7 | 1.7% | 5,104.6 | 3.9% |
| 2009 | 1,345.9 | −6.8% | 4,745.4 | −7.6% |
| 2010 | 1,241.1 | −7.8% | 4,510.1 | −5% |
| 2011 | 1,130.3 | −8.9% | 4,581.3 | 1.6% |
| 2012 | 1,177.9 | 4.2% | 4,628.0 | 1.0% |
| 2013 | 1,219.0 | 3.5% | 4,790.7 | 3.5% |
| 2014 | 1,244.4 | 1.9% | 5,182.5 | 8.2% |
| 2015 | 1,269.1 | 2.1% | 4,676.2 | -9.6% |
| 2016 | 1,205.9 | -5.3% | 4,802.9 | 2.4% |
| 2017 | 1,004.9 | -16.5% | 4,283.9 | -9.5% |
| 2018 | 995.9 | -0.7% | 4,373.8 | 2.3% |
| 1995 | 2,661.4 | – | 9,512.1 | – |
| 2018 | 995.9 | −62.5% | 4,373.8 | −54.0% |
Murders by Year
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