Early Edition with Kate Hawkesby

It’s never feels good to read about crime stats, especially when they’re getting as bad as they are in our CBDs, but even more so when it’s entirely preventable.“More than 1000 people have been assaulted in Auckland's CBD this year, many of whom have been randomly punched by strangers while enjoying a night out on the town,” according to the Herald.It reported new Police stats showing a sharp rise in violent crime in Auckland’s city centre.“A 63 per cent increase in assaults for the first five months of this year, compared with the same period in 2019."Basically a night in town these days could mean a night in hospital.We shouldn’t blithely accept this kind of thing as – oh well, times have changed.We should be safe in our cities, people should be able to go out at night and not end up at A&E.Of course, one of the factors is the scale up of inner city emergency housing and with that, an increase in anti-social behaviour.What worries me though is that it’s not just our CBDs; smaller, more localised shoppin