Change of policing roles plan to alleviate cop resource crisis

Struggling with a worker shortage, SA Police will hand over traditional cop roles to a new kind of officer – see which ones.

More than a dozen traditional police roles are set to be handed to protective security officers to help solve the force’s crippling resourcing crisis.

The tasks currently conducted by sworn police officers including guarding crime scenes, alarms response at schools, traffic cordons, hospital and cell guard duties, event security and welfare checks are among those earmarked for change.

Police Commissioner Grant Stevens has established a project team that is developing the necessary legislation and training to facilitate the move – with the support of the police union.

Broelman's view of SAPOL's change to traditional police jobs

The transition is expected to return up to 100 sworn officers to frontline duties in the short term to provide relief for those rapidly becoming fatigued because of the chronic shortages.

Police Association of SA ) president Mark Carroll. Picture: Brenton Edwards

Police Association President Mark Carroll said the move would provide “some relief’’ for those on the frontline but other measures were still urgently needed.

“We are supportive of this program, the PSOs will be conducting security roles for people and property,’’ he said.

“But this is not the entire solution. I reiterate that we still strongly believe SAPOL’s operational policing model needs review because it simply cannot be resourced properly and is contributing to the problem we are confronted with.’’

Mr Stevens said the PSOs move would assist, but the major focus was on improving the number of recruits which had spiked with 85 new applications in recent days.

“We already use PSOs in areas such as assisting Major Crime with reviewing CCTV, but we are looking at every opportunity we can,’’ he said.

“The project team is moving very quickly. Depending on the training and legislative requirements it could be weeks, but for some areas such as prisoner management it will take longer.’’

Police Commissioner Grant Stevens. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Brenton Edwards

Police at the scene of a home invasion at Pineview Villag. Picture: Mike Burton

Last month The Advertiser revealed a shortage of recruits had resulted in three intake courses of 90 cadets being cancelled, which together with average daily Covid related absences of around 120 officers was also contributing to the severe shortage of frontline and regional police.

The police resourcing crisis boiled over this week with a meeting of union delegates on Wednesday passing a vote of no confidence in SAPOL’s District Policing Model.

Under the model district policing teams that are meant to be preventing crime and targeting recidivist offenders are continually being used to support response teams to respond to incidents because of staff shortages. This has led to increased stress, fatigue and morale issues across the frontline.

Documents obtained by The Advertiser reveal the depth of the chronic staffing levels that existed in the Southern Metropolitan District this week.

The first of 114 new protective security officers enlisted as part of the state’s Covid-19 response, Matthew, Arbab, Tim and Dimple. Picture: SA Police

They reveal the 12 district policing teams, which are meant to be conducting proactive policing such as targeting recidivist housebreakers and drug offenders, comprised less than half of their rostered manpower.

They show there were just 10 supervisors and 48 officers across the 12 teams when there were meant to be 12 supervisors and 101 officers on the roster – a deficit of 54 police officers – with teams attached to Netley the worst hit.

Mr Carroll said a direct result of these shortages was there was “very, very little proactive policing conducted across that region of the city.’’

“The staffing shortages presently are so critical that some of these teams were down to just three officers instead of 10,’’ he said.

“It is a boiler house, they start their shifts with 30 jobs to look at and finish with 30 jobs yet to be looked at,’’ he said.

“We are going to be in crisis for at least another two years because of the recruiting issues, so other measures need to be considered urgently.

“The district policing model looks very good on paper, but in reality we never have and will never have enough staff to make it work as intended. It needs to be reviewed urgently.’’