Police changes focus on prevention

In the 33 years Inspector Rob Lindsay has been in enforcement, he's never seen such enormous changes to the way the police work.

The Waikato District's prevention manager is overseeing sweeping changes in many of the ways the police work - all of which ultimately mean the public will see more officers on the streets, when and where they are needed.

Prevention First is the new police operating strategy which puts prevention at the forefront of all its operations and is more victim focused. The strategy was floated in 2011 but this year the public will begin to see tangible changes.

Mr Lindsay said while the first line of duty for police was to respond to emergencies, the changes would see police working more proactively in all other areas.

"We're changing the way we work so our officers can spend more time working with people, at the right time, in the right places."

Mr Lindsay said there were several "policing excellence projects" under way in the Waikato that would modernise and change the way the police worked and it would all be in place by June.

There are three key projects operating that involve new technology, new teams and issuing pre-charge warnings for minor first-time offences.

The technology changes include the introduction next month of smartphones and iPads for frontline officers and the Crime Reporting Line (CRL) last month.

Already in place in other districts around the North Island, CRL is a non-emergency reporting system based at a purpose-built call centre in Auckland.

The prevention strategy has seen the gradual closure to the public of three police out-stations in Hamilton. Mr Lindsay said he understood that some residents were upset about that.

"Some people prefer personal contact but the majority of people in the modern world want to report an offence, they don't want to take time off work or queue for ages at a station," he said.

There are phones at the out-stations in Clyde St, Whatawhata Rd and at Flagstaff the public can use to speak to CRL, or to call in an emergency.

CRL grades the priority of the call (and issues an insurance number if appropriate) and sends it on to Hamilton's new Investigation Support Unit (ISU) where staff will look at leads and either file the complaint, or send it on for further investigation.

Mr Lindsay said everything would happens in real time.

ISU will sit alongside the Criminal Justice Support Unit. Together, the civil staff in the two divisions will deal with all the paperwork sworn officers used to do.

Another new team will oversee deployment. Mr Lindsay said officers used to prepare rosters for their area, but there was limited communication about which station or department was dealing with staff shortages for any reason. "So nationally, we've said we'll take that job off you.

We've set up a team here who run all the leave, all the training, all the deployment staff so we have a better picture as a whole district of where our staff are. It's more fluid. It gives us the ability to move officers around as needed."

And it's that fluidity that the newly-created District Command Centre (DCC) will utilise. The centre began operating last weekend. It will be trialled for six weeks and refined before becoming fully operational by May.

Mr Lindsay said the DCC would act on information from the public to deploy officers into areas as needed. "When an event comes in that is suspicious, whether it's someone driving badly or say there are youth gathering, we can start deploying staff into those areas in real time." He said by looking at patterns of behaviour the DCC was able to act to prevent crime.

"We know at certain times in certain areas there can be issues.

"We can see a pattern near the transport centre around 3pm when young people are gathering so make sure there are officers in the area at that time."

The third 'policing excellence' initiative is pre-charge warnings. Mr Lindsay said where someone was arrested for a minor first offence, such as a breach of the liquor ban, they would normally be charged and appear in court, which took up a lot of police time creating and processing paperwork.

"We've looked at that and asked what we're achieving.

"The sergeant will look at the file, say 'look, you've been a bit of an idiot', give an official warning, and release the person.

"By doing this it's released about 19 per cent of court time for minor offences and we can reinvest that time elsewhere.

"All of this is a massive change and it's being driven properly, none of it is just a flash in the pan. It's a long-term, fully integrated strategy."