District Commander Mike Johnson has welcomed the 55 officers allocated to Tasman on Monday, August 20, by Police Commissioner Mike Bush.
The new staff were allocated as part of the 1800 additional police funded through a $298.8 million increase in Budget 2018, which built on an increase in 2017/18.
“This is a significant investment into our front-line capability throughout Tasman over the coming years. I am very pleased that all of this investment will be deployed to core policing roles to work on preventing serious crime, organised crime and making our communities safer throughout Tasman,” says Mike.
“Initially our focus will be to invest into the family harm and child protection/adult sexual assault areas.
“The focus of this approach complements the changes police have made in looking more widely than just at the violence of a dispute that we often attend, but working at addressing the causes of that so we can break the cycle of violence.
“This takes considerable effort but has better long -term benefits for the whole whānau group and ultimately the community.
While staff are assigned to a particular area of work they are all expected to deal with a full range of duties as is required.
“Following this we are investing into our youth services, placing 21 new frontline officers across the district, and increasing those working on serious and organised crime by 10.”
“An important goal of this investment for us is that it is not just about the new staff coming in, but it is important for us to ensure we are considering all of our staff, both new and those already in place, making sure they are deployed to have the most impact and deliver police services to make the whole community safer,” says Superintendent Johnson.
Tasman District has already invested five staff into focusing on priority and prolific offenders to reduce crime such as burglary, robbery, drugs and car crime.
The allocation also includes the introduction of a Serious and Organised Crime Taskforce in order to combat and prevent gang-related crime such as methamphetamine supply, violence and intimidation, and other serious offending.