NT Police are reviewing their own crime stats after concerning ‘anomalies’ were discovered during the SerPro rollout

The NT Government has published incorrect crime statistics, despite police warning agencies their data has ‘anomalies’.

Minister Brent Potter and Acting Commander John Atkin looks at the SerPro integrated digital policing system in the NT. Picture: Pema Tamang Pakhrin

NT Police have no confidence in their own crime statistics amid a controversial new case management system rollout.

On Friday, acting commander of digital transformation John Atkin said concerns were raised about “anomalies” in the latest February crime data.

Mr Atkin said the monthly data — the third test of the new SerPro case management system — “do not seem to align with the calls for police services in some areas”.

He was not able to clarify if the inaccuracies were limited to certain investigation areas, like domestic violence or property crimes, or geographic regions.

“We’re looking at all areas to make sure that what is currently being reported is accurate,” Mr Atkin said.

The new February data claimed crime across the Territory decreased by 28 per cent compared to the previous month.

NT Police acting commander of digital transformation John Atkin. Picture: Zizi Averill

While Mr Atkin said the decline aligned with seasonal trends to NT crime rates, he added the latest data should be approached with caution.

“But we really want to go back and have a check of the raw data in and of itself,” he said.

The new data claims in the entire month of February there were only three car thefts in Palmerston, two in Alice Springs one in Katherine and only 13 cars stolen from remote areas.

Police Minister Brent Potter said the “discrepancies” were anticipated in the SerPro transition, and acknowledged some crime rates were “too good to be true”.

However Mr Potter said the SerPro changeover was necessary: “If we didn’t do it, the system would have fallen over completely”.

Acting Commander John Atkin, Minister Brent Potter and Director Criminal Justice Research and Statistics Unit Carolyn Whyte at the press conference of SerPro, a modern, proven and integrated digital policing system in the NT. Picture: Pema Tamang Pakhrin

Mr Atkin added work was ongoing to “make the transition as smooth as possible”.

“(But) you can’t implement a new case management system and new core police system into a 24/7 agency without causing a certain amount of disruption,” he said.

Mr Atkin said there were several potential reasons for the data inaccuracies, including “end user” issues with cops not ensuring crime statistics were entered.

He also suggested because jobs were logged later in the investigation compared to the old system “there may be a longer time for data to settle”.

However, Mr Atkin flagged the system may also be over-reporting crime, with dispatch call-outs being logged as confirmed offences.

When asked why inaccurate data was still being realised, Mr Atkin said the crime statistics were published by the Attorney-General’s Department.

Crime statistics are often relied on for policy decisions, like the controversial Alice Springs curfew, as well as by politicians in election year campaign mode.

Mr Atkin said decision making was not solely based on SerPro data, adding the police were “fully transparent … about our data, and what it is that we can and can’t capture and how it should be used”.

He was unable to give a timeline for when the unreliable data would be fixed.

CLP Corporate and Digital Development spokesman Bill Yan said it was evident that SerPro was not working, following cost and rollout timelines blow outs.

“And now we have an IT system that is not able to deliver the statistics people need to formulate their plans … to deal with crime,” Mr Yan said.

The Attorney-General has been contacted over why the decision was made to publish the knowingly incorrect data.

and police union have been contacted for comment.

Originally published as NT Police are reviewing their own crime stats after concerning ‘anomalies’ were discovered during the SerPro rollout