Is policing resource keeping up with rising crime rates?

In the latest POLFED Pay and Morale Survey, 86% do not feel there are enough officers to meet the demands of their team or their unit.

Transcript

00:00It's very challenging for police in the hall at the moment because we're trying to meet

00:05varying demands and what is quite an impactive incident for individuals in the community

00:12when they feel like this disorderly behaviour is affecting their home, it's almost like

00:18an invasion of their personal space, so it's very high in their priority. So when we start

00:23looking at officers, the public perhaps thinking officers don't care or don't want to attend

00:29a nuisance incident, they have to prioritise their work and I know a lot of my colleagues

00:34out there have got 30 crimes to investigate. The increase in nuisance behaviour, how is

00:40that affecting morale and mental health of police officers given the frequency and sometimes

00:46lack of visible progress in addressing these type of issues? I can give you some key figures

00:52here because in our last police morale survey, the pay morale survey we did with the Federation,

00:58we found that 91% of officers were suffering from low mood or very low mood due to how

01:05they're being treated by government is one thing, but secondly the amount of work that

01:09they have to do and the demand that's placed on them. Yeah that's a really shocking number

01:14that the figure is so high. In terms of support then, do you believe that current laws and

01:20policies are effective in helping the police manage this sort of nuisance behaviour, low

01:25level crime, that sort of thing, or are there areas where reform is needed? There needs

01:30to be significant investment back into policing. Like I've said to you before, you know that

01:34the replacement of 20,000 officers doesn't mean that we've still got that capability

01:39because what it doesn't show is the support staff that sit behind officers helping them

01:45to be frontline, they've all disappeared. So there's been investment in police officers

01:50but not in the infrastructure to support officers to be out on the streets. So we need

01:55significant investment in policing.