Labour’s Police Policy Misdirected

Former South Auckland Sergeant and Destiny New Zealand Leader, Richard Lewis, has described Labour’s promise of 250 extra police as misdirected and “too little, too late.”

According to Prime Minister Helen Clark, Labour aims to increase the number of community police by recruiting an extra 250 over the next two years. But Mr Lewis says the policy is misdirected.

“There is no point in talking about glamorous roles such as Community Constables when there is an extreme shortage on the frontlines. We don’t just need more police, we need experienced police – and we need them on the frontlines,” said Mr Lewis.

Mr Lewis added that Labour’s continued failure to acknowledge frontline demands had taken its toll on morale.

To that end, Destiny New Zealand Policies for Law & Order include:

Increasing police frontline staff by 1,300 with an immediate injection of 550 new staff, to achieve parity with other western nation police to population ratios

Ensuring Police have sufficient budget resource with flexibility to allocate that resource according to frontline demands

Pursuing measures to recover experienced police officers in roles of serious crime investigation, response, training and mentoring

The party also has policies specific to targeting organised crime and the drug trade. Destiny New Zealand candidates and policies can be viewed on www.destinynz.org.nz

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