Ron Iddles: Embarrassing choices for hard-pressed police officers
COMMENT: HOW do you decide between sending an officer to: attend a big car crash; someone hurt and trapped in a building; follow up a missing girl, 12; or deal with a shoplifter being held by a store owner?
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OUR police officers are now at breaking point, data released today reveals.
Nearly 330 senior sergeants told us police stations are chronically understaffed.
They’re struggling to get patrols on the road, cannot get to every call and community
expectations are not being met.
The state’s growing population, skyrocketing crime rate and the increased complexity of policing tasks mean that many calls for assistance are now going unattended.
Eighty-four per cent of senior sergeants spoken to say they do not have the first-response police numbers required to get to all public calls for assistance.
Senior sergeants told us about the stress of deciding whether to send resources to ‘very
serious crimes’ or just ‘serious crimes’.
The public expect Victoria Police to be well-resourced and to keep our communities safe.
For most reported crimes, the community expects police will respond within five to ten minutes. Sadly, at the moment, this is far from the case.
One Senior Sergeant spoke of the shift he had just worked.
He had to choose between sending police to attend a five car accident, an injured person trapped in a building, to take the report of a missing twelve-year-old girl or deal with a shoplifter
being held by a store owner.
He described this situation as “embarrassing”.
It is ‘embarrassing’ to have to call victims at each scene and say that police were on their way “but that they might be a while”.
The inability to deliver what the community expects is becoming increasingly confronting for officers, many who find that their community’s patience is wearing thin.
Men and women who choose a career in policing are committed to a life of community service and so the anguish felt by senior sergeants to acknowledge that they often fail to meet community expectations is plain to see.
Facing conflicting priorities, long working hours, and a lack of resources, more police than ever are taking stress leave.
Melbourne is our fastest growing capital and has often been rated one of the great livable cities, partly because our streets have been traditionally safe with our lifestyle second to none.
It is also true however, that crime is increasing by double figures each year, and everyone in our community can see the impact this is having in their own backyard.
Enormous workloads coupled with police shortages compromise the ability of officers to do their jobs and make the inroads necessary to reverse this disturbing trend.
Eighty-nine per cent of senior sergeants spoken to say that they need to delay a police response for so long that it represents a risk to community safety.
They report that administration takes police away from community policing.
Where technology can be improved to reduce administration, it should be — but technology is no substitute for boots on the ground.
Police must have a strong visible presence in our communities.
All too often we hear that the community no longer sees its police on the streets like it once did. Our highway patrols are hard to spot, even during peak periods, police rarely have time
to engage the community and foot patrols have vanished.
The doors of stations are found closed more often.
We are not nostalgically trying to hold onto a bygone era.
We are trying to stop an erosion of police services that once effectively reduced crime.
Members who are now working in taskforces, having been removed from stations, are not replaced.
Senior sergeants tell us that this model of taskforce policing is one of the main reasons for staff shortages.
Sure, we need taskforce operations to apprehend offenders, we always have, but not at the expense of visible first-response police on our streets who deter crime in the first place.
This community safety crisis will not be resolved by anything other than an additional
commitment of police.
The Police Association’s analysis shows that we need 3301 new police officers by 2022 to keep Victorians safe.
That is a modest and sustainable 550 police a year over the next six years especially when you consider that our population is tipped to grow by more than 100,000 each year over the same
period.
In 2014, we said Victoria needed 1880 extra first-response police just to keep pace with the population growth predicted then, that we are experiencing today.
This report card from senior sergeants is further evidence that a failure to plan ahead for population growth compromises community safety.
In addition, the demands on police in the future will keep growing.
The Family Violence Royal Commission recommendations are but one example of additional
work planned for police that cannot be delivered if current police numbers remain the
same.
Triple zero (000) calls for police are increasing faster than population itself yet there are fewer first-response police in stations today than there were in 2014.
In the last budget the Victorian Government promised 400 extra police over two years.
While welcome, this commitment doesn’t go close to meeting community expectations and growing needs.
Years away from an election, it is time to call ‘stop’ on law and order electioneering that leaves police constantly playing catch-up with crime.
The only way for this to be achieved, is for all sides of politics to plan for police numbers well in advance.
This is something that must be done today before community safety is further compromised and police numbers fall further and further behind.
- Ron Iddles is the Secretary of The Police Association of Victoria.