Slower Response Times For Priority One Calls Shows Clear Need For More Frontline Police And Focus On Adequate Resources
“The slower response times for Priority One calls shows a clear need for more frontline police and a focus on adequate resources for that area,” Association Vice-President, Richard Middleton said today.
Mr Middleton was responding to the statement from the Minister of Police yesterday that Police response times are slower than target times set.
“We know our frontline Police do their difficult community job well with the resources that they have. However most, if not all, additional funding in recent years has been tagged to specific areas and frontline police numbers have been ignored with staff continuously robbed for other initiatives,” said Mr Middleton.
Mr Middleton said, “In Australia they have 1 Police officer to every 461 Australians. In the UK & Wales the ratio is about 1 to every 406 people and in the USA their ratio is about 1 to every 432 people. Here in NZ, we have one of the lowest numbers of Sworn Police to Population in the English-speaking world, with 1 officer to every 543 New Zealanders.*
“NZ would require another 1300 police officers, just to come up to Australia’s ratio.”
“The Government needs to invest some of that budget surplus in increasing general frontline Police numbers and improving their resources,” said Mr Middleton. “If they do this, then the Police will be better able to respond to all calls, not just those that are Priority One and the NZ public will feel safer.”
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