MORE than 300 probationary officers are being sent to country and regional areas after graduating last week, with NSW Police Minister Michael Gallacher flagging sweeping changes to policing in the State.
Mr Gallacher has released 22 recommendations arising from a government audit into police resources by former Assistant Commissioner Peter Parsons.
“The aim of the audit was to determine where police are, where they need to be and how best to use them,” Mr Gallacher said, adding all command units would be brought up to 90 per cent operational strength immediately.
Other recommendations include abolishing local area commands (LACs) and using specially trained security guards to transfer people in custody – a move the NSW Police Association believes is especially relevant in the bush, where it could free up hours of police time.
But the association’s secretary, Peter Remfrey, called on the government to release the entire Parsons Report.
He said the report had been before government and cabinet for three months and changes to policing were “desperately needed”.
Sending more probationary constables to regional areas would not necessarily fix issues associated with police numbers.
“The problem is that in smaller towns police numbers are so skinny there might be one car crew working at a time and transportation of a prisoner takes the car crew out of town – often for a significant time. We’ve long said that Juvenile Justice and Correctional Services officers should take on this role,” Mr Remfrey said.
“There are two problems with flooding country towns with probationary constables – one is that these towns need a mix of experienced and junior officers and the latter need the opportunity to complete the academic and professional modules necessary for them to end their probationary year.
“It’s really critical they do that work in a controlled environment with appropriate facilities and personnel to train them, and that’s not necessarily the case when there are small numbers of police.
“The other problem is we’re not actually increasing numbers in country towns. These aren’t additional positions – by and large they are filling vacant positions.”
The association wants an extra 1500 police, State wide.
Mr Remfrey said the “one size fits all” structure of LACs had a downside because the town where the LAC was based tended to have the lion’s share of resources.
“Other towns don’t necessarily get the same level of attention and we are in favour of putting an inspector in some of the smaller towns. There’s a school of thought that larger country towns need to be paid a little more respect with a permanent senior officer.”
Commenting on Tamworth’s campaign for reform to tackle crime, Mr Remfrey said the only way to drive crime down was through pro-active policing.
“Tamworth simply doesn’t have enough police; it’s typical of a lot of areas in NSW.
“Pro-active policing is really important because people prefer not to be the victims of crime.
“High levels of crime take the feeling of community away and NSW has one of the lowest police-to-population ratios in the world.”
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