SA Police announce restructure including district merger, rollout of body-worn cameras
Updated
Six police local service areas (LSA) in Adelaide will be merged into four districts and more roles will be given to civilians under a restructure unveiled by the SA Police Commissioner.
Non-sworn officers will start taking triple-0 calls from 2020 and body-worn cameras will be rolled out in 2017 along with facial recognition systems (some of which is already being utilised), as part of the 'SAPOL 2020' vision.
SA Police Commissioner Grant Stevens said custody management and receiving triple-0 calls were the only areas where civilians would be utilised instead of sworn officers.
"It gives other opportunities to take police back off other functions and put them on the front line," he said.
"As far as other opportunities for civilians, we will look at that going forward."
Mr Stevens said the use of qualified police would be a priority "where ever possible".
He said the new vision was the biggest reform of SA Police in 20 years.
Mr Stevens said no police stations would be closed as part of the merger, with the four new districts to be called Northern, Eastern, Southern and Western by 2018.
He said police work in the four districts would more closely resemble the community approach taken in the regions.
This means an address that receives repeated attention from police, such as for loud music, neighbourhood disputes, or mental health issues, will no longer be treated as simply a response situation for offices from LSAs.
Instead new District Policing Teams will coordinate an ongoing response to the underlying issue and treat scenarios as issues that need to be resolved long-term through community work.
"However, they will not be acting alone," Mr Stevens said.
"They will be fully supported by frontline police officers working in response teams, and a full range of other police services including CIB, dog operations, intelligence, traffic, mounted operations, water operations, crime scene specialists."
No staff cuts: Commissioner
Mr Stevens said changes were being made within SAPOL's existing budget and there had been no cuts to staff numbers or the budget.
When asked if any officers would have to reapply for their jobs, Mr Stevens said "most people who are currently working in an operational environment will be minimally affected by those changes".
"We will work with individual officers to put them into a situation that helps them and us," he said.
A SAPOL 2020 document said other changes include a 24-hour investigation support desk dedicated to assisting "real-time responders" as they investigate crime.
There will also be a 24-hour state crime assessment centre to "reduce administrative demand on front-line supervision by vetting and allocating all crime incidents".
Sworn offices will operate both support desks.
A 24-hour state response manager will be established to deploy resources across the metropolitan area "regardless of district boundaries", and there will be more officers allocated to child and family investigations.
"The reality is, there is a greater awareness today of the risk that children are at," Mr Stevens said.
A review of SAPOL's regional services will start in 2017.
Topics: police, crime, law-crime-and-justice, states-and-territories, adelaide-5000, sa
First posted
