Give enough incentives to attract and retain police officers to work in rural South Australia.
That’s the call to the government from the Police Association of South Australia, the union representing police officers.
President Mark Carroll told The [Naracoorte Community] News that it was a “perennial challenge” to attract enough police officers to work in rural South Australia and then retain them over the long term.
“One of the ways for SAPOL to achieve this is to ensure there are appropriate incentives for members to transfer into country areas,” he said.
Mr Carroll said the South-east, unfortunately, was no exception to the wider staffing predicament, which was ubiquitous throughout South Australia Police.
“As an example, the Naracoorte and Bordertown areas have a current shortfall of four permanent staff members.
“Overall, SAPOL has a deficit of at least 200 full-time equivalent sworn police officers across the entire force,” Mr Carroll claimed.
Earlier, the union had called for an overhaul of the state’s policing model amid growing concerns about a lack of staff to respond to crime.
Mr Carroll said there was not enough staff for the district policing model to work effectively.
Moreover, the South Australia Police has been allocated $81 million in funding in the new state budget to spend over the next four years recruiting sworn police security officers in a bid to relieve pressure from staff shortages.
This funding will allow SA Police to hire 189 sworn police security officers (PSOs), a role previously known as protective security officers, who can perform some of the same roles as police officers.
The additional PSOs will be deployed across metropolitan prisons and to various security roles, which will free up police officers to focus on frontline duties.
Funding has also been allocated in the state budget for 900 new police cadets.
This article appeared in the Naracoorte Community News.
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