April 1999 Volume 80 Number 4 "serving the protectors"
Editorial
By Andy Dunn

Praying That No One Gets Hurt

It was impossible for some PASA delegates to attend a special meeting last month which addressed the issue of long-time staff shortages within SAPOL. The reason? Their workplaces were short-staffed.

Stories abounded nonetheless of some of the State’s toughest beats being policed by patrols which could barely be described as skeleton crews.

Also revealed was alarming news that fewer than half of 1000 calls to the police attendance line - 11 444 - were successfully answered on a day in mid-March.

And tens of requests for investigations to be assisted by covert policing specialists have been denied in recent months, the meeting was told.

Of course, in the proud tradition of South Australian policing, officers continue to prop up the floundering police service - at great emotional cost. The depletion of their ranks has placed them under enormous stress, and all but totally destroyed what remains of their morale.

But Police Association president, Peter Alexander, asked what was probably the most pertinent question of the March 19 meeting: “Do we wait until someone gets (physically) hurt?”

Policing is a job which, for reasons of survival, requires support in numbers. If this is the worst staffing crisis in SA police history - as many have asserted - the risk of serious injury, or worse, will become frighteningly higher.

This should be a source of absolute shame to the Government. But will it feel shamed? If the Government isn’t concerned enough to support police with sufficient staff, then it must shamelessly harbour little concern for their welfare.

At PASA’s special delegates’ meeting, Peter Alexander announced that he had put the Government on notice. If any police officer is hurt as a result of staff shortages, he intends to identify exactly “where responsibility belongs”.

In that identification exercise, the Police Journal intends to support him, but we pray that until numbers are bolstered, no police officer is hurt.

Respond With Common Sense

As illustrated in our cover story, Witnessing Families’ Pain, family violence investigations are some of the toughest in policing.

Detectives’ enquiries must be thorough, and intensely probing questions must be asked of unfortunate victims suffering immense strain.

As told in our story, however, detectives performing this arduous role are sometimes the subject of complaints.

One would earnestly hope that simple common sense precludes many of these investigations from being pursued along official lines.