Telephone line at nerve centre of mapping hot spots

The first officers who will man a new crime reporting telephone line for non-urgent crime will begin training today.

Assistant Commissioner Grahame Kelly said the crime reporting line would improve the ability of police to respond to and investigate crime.

The telephone line – designed to free up police officers on the street – will begin operation by November.

The line will be for reporting of crimes that do not need a police response. The emergency triple 0 line will still operate.

“The call centre will take a lot more detail from people over the phone and assessments can be made about what action is needed so the urgent responses can be more speedily dealt with,” Mr Kelly said.

“We’re hoping that it will have some really big effects on the things that we’re doing to improve our service delivery.”

When operational, the call centre will have a staff of four police sergeants who would oversee a staff of 14 civilians.

The line will take detailed reports from the public to be used by regional intelligence officers at police stations to identify crime hot spots and active criminals.

The information will be used to set daily “targets” for police.

Calls that need further investigation by police will be referred to teams of detectives based at local police stations to follow up.

The system is part of an overall restructuring of the NT Police force that Mr Kelly said would help improve service delivery by police to the community.

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/