P PRESIDENT Mark Carroll
Hindley Street
Abandon the model, not the APY Lands T
he proposed SAPOL APY Lands model is a lose-lose for police and the remote indigenous communities with which they have worked hard to build significant relationships. The model relies on State Tactical Response Group members flying in and out to police communities on the lands. It is a proposal which not only disadvantages the indigenous communities on the lands but will also become an industrial issue for Police Association members. It situates these Adelaide-based members away from their homes and families for around 60 per cent of their total shifts. By occupying permanent positions on the lands, police have always been able to gain critical knowledge of local communities, such as their family structures and the welfare issues indigenous people face in the area. It is a system which has worked for many years and is critical for gaining trust with the local community members. It is folly to underestimate the relationships police form with local communities. They provide the necessary trust for victims of crime to come forward and make reports. 10
Police Journal
The proposed FIFO model simply facilitates the abandonment of longestablished customs of community policing. In fact, the Australian Law Reform Commission Inquiry into Indigenous Incarceration Rates highlighted that: “… poor relations influence how often Aboriginal and Torres Straight Island people interact with police… poor police relations can contribute to disproportionate arrest, police custody and incarceration rates.” The association is firm in its position that SAPOL should: • Maintain permanent officers on the APY Lands. • Undertake meaningful discussions with the association regarding any difficulties with the current model. • Actively work to fill long-standing vacant community constable positions. • Create permanent relief positions and train appropriate voluntary discrete personnel to relieve permanent members when absent from the APY Lands. SAPOL should not proceed with its new model. I have written to Commissioner Grant Stevens and informed the government of our position.
The SAPOL district policing model has not only abandoned Hindley St police officers but also put the community at risk. The area has a colourful history and a reputation for trouble. But one thing partygoers in the precinct could count on was permanent foot patrols in Hindley St, Rundle St, Rundle Mall and the surrounding areas. That kept these highly charged areas safe, especially during the peak periods on Friday and Saturday nights. And the sight of uniformed officers on foot patrol provided a strong deterrent for those who sought to create trouble. But under the district policing model, this staple of Adelaide policing is now a thing of the past. Eastern District members, who service the area, tell me that at times there is not a single officer on foot patrol in Hindley St or the surrounding areas. Under the current model, Hindley St members can actually be called to jobs anywhere in the district. That means they might have to respond to jobs as far away as Unley or Parkside. It’s hard to believe that SAPOL could implement a policing model devoid of permanent foot patrols in Hindley St. The result is that the area and its surrounds are now an unsafe, out-of-control haven for anti-social behaviour, criminal activity and alcohol-fuelled violence. SAPOL must take responsibility, and be held accountable, for the abject failure of its model insofar as it relates to the entertainment precinct. It must: • Review the DPM model as it pertains to the Eastern District. • Provide permanent foot patrols in these high-risk city areas — across the full spectrum of shifts. • Increase the size of response patrol teams in the Eastern District and return them to the staffing levels that existed before the Stage 2 DPM rollout in March 2020.
