Detective shortage hampers probes

Many serious crimes have gone unsolved in the Territory because of a lack of detectives to investigate them.

Detectives and other senior police sources have told the Northern Territory News that for much of the 1990s there were not enough officers to handle the volume of cases being referred to the Criminal Investigation Branch.

Only murders, rapes and serious assaults were being investigated fully, detectives said.

“If we didn’t have time to complete them or gather the evidence, we didn’t,” one source said.

“We are never told, ‘don’t investigate a case of interfering with a motor vehicle,’ but it was the norm because we just didn’t have the numbers.”

The source said it had been made clear that serious crime was the priority.

“I’m not saying we didn’t investigate any other crime – of course we did,” the source said.

“But they were jobs that are guaranteed a quick result.

“Anything that requires time and effort to get a result we struggle with.”

The O’Sullivan report into the resourcing of the NT police said: “There are delays in major crime investigations and significant backlogs in the forensic area.” At the time the O’Sullivan report was released in August 2003, the establishment level of the CIB was 63, but the branch had only 49 officers manning the unit.

Since O’Sullivan, more than 32 new detectives have been pushed through intensive training courses at the police college in Darwin.

But many police say it has made little difference.

One detective cited the armed holdup of the Humpty Doo Tavern in October 2003, where two bar staff were shot, as an example.

“One day the whole unit was assigned to the case, the next there was one,” the detective said. “And yet the boss was still out there spinning the line that we had assigned every available officer to it. How is one cop supposed to catch two violent well-organised offenders?”

NT Police Association president Vince Kelly declined to comment directly on whether the ability of police to full (sic) investigate crime had improved.

“Since O’Sullivan there are things happening,” he said.

Newshawk: Stuart Highway
Pubdate: 19th April 2004
Source: Northern Territory News (Australia)
Author: Edith Bevin
Copyright: 2004 Northern Territory News
Contact: ntnmail@ntn.newsltd.com.au
Website: http://ntnews.news.com.au/