Queensland Police Service

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Queensland Police Service

• Community Policing

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QUEENSLAND

• The state of Queensland is the second-largest
  state in Australia (670,500 square miles) which
  is approximately the size of Texas and California
  combined.

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QUEENSLAND

• On the January 1, 1864 the Queensland Force, now
  called the Queensland Police Service (QPS),
  comprising of approximately 143 employees, first
  began operating under its own legislation.

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Queensland Police Service

• As of June 30 2002, there were 8367 sworn staff
  (20.2 females) and 2925 staff members at 321
  Police Stations, 40 Police Beat Shopfronts and 21
  Neighbourhood Police Beats, throughout the State.
  The 2003-04 budget is 1.001 billion. The QPS
  is committed to increasing the number of police
  officers in Queensland to 9,100 by September 2005.

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Queensland Police Service

• The Police Powers and Responsibilities Act 2000
  consolidates police powers contained in more than
  130 Queensland statutes and is the result of more
  than a decade of work. The Act became effective
  on 1 July 2000.
• The QPS is divided into eight regions as follows

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Queensland Police Regions
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Community Policing

• Community Policing has been adopted as the
  primary policing strategy (definition of
  community policing - the police and the community
  working together to identify opportunities and
  solve policing problems). "Members of the Service
  are to act in partnership with the Community at
  large.

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Programs

• The QPS has several programs designed to bring
  the police closer to the community

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Police Beat Shopfronts
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Police Beat

• The Police Beat Program encompasses the Police
  Beat Shopfronts and the Neighbourhood Police
  Beats.
• The Police Beat Shopfronts program was launched
  on December 20, 1992 and is an initiative aimed
  at providing the people of Queensland with an
  effective policing presence in shopping centres
  and central business districts.

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Police Beat Shopfronts

• The Police Beat Shopfronts program is an
  operational policing concept in community
  policing with the following objectives
• Improve the community feeling about personal
  safety
• Reduce the community fear of crime
• Satisfy the need for people to communicate more
  easily with police
• Raise the perception of risking detection when
  committing offences and
• Contribute positively to the Queensland Police
  Service Strategic Plan.

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Definition

• 'Police Beat' is operational policing. In order
  to promote the concept to retailers, centre
  management, the community and police, Police Beat
  shopfronts must operate as part of the policing
  environment for the whole area.
• Police Beat officers walk the beat, talk to
  people, solve problems, handle complaints, make
  arrests and so on. Most occurrences of a policing
  nature that happens to be in the confines of that
  beat are handled by the Beat Police.

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Neighbourhood Police Beats

• The Neighbourhood Police Beat (NHPB) program was
  launched in 1993. It is a Government funded
  policing initiative aimed at providing the people
  of Queensland with an effective policing presence
  in urban situations. Due to community support for
  NHPBs, they have been and are expanding
  throughout the State.

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Neighbourhood Police Beat

• Neighbourhood Police Beat policing is, in
  essence, problem-oriented policing adopting the
  most effective solution to the policing problem
  that is encountered. It places police in a unique
  position to adopt problem-oriented policing to
  everything they do.

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Neighbourhood Police Beat

• The success of this program to date has been
  demonstrated by the high community acceptance of
  Neighbourhood Police Beats and the expressed
  desire of communities to have more of this
  service in their immediate area.

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Neighbourhood Police Beat

• Evidence has also revealed that police officers
  involved in the Neighbourhood Police Beat program
  are generally achieving a high degree of
  satisfaction in performing their duties, and are
  performing their duties effectively, efficiently
  and in line with their sworn oath of office.

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Neighbourhood Police Beat Definition

• Beat Policing can be defined as
• "a philosophy of full service personalised
  policing, where the same officer works in the
  same area on a permanent basis, from a
  decentralised place, working in a proactive
  partnership with citizens to identify and solve
  problems."
• 'Police Beat' officers walk the beat, talk to
  people, solve problems, handle complaints, make
  arrests and so on. Most occurrences of a policing
  nature that happen to be in the confines of that
  beat area are handled by the police beat.

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Neighbourhood Police Beat Objectives

• The objectives of the Neighbourhood Police Beats
  program are to
• Reduce repeat calls for service
• Encourage problem solving
• Develop problem-oriented and partnership policing
  (POPP) strategies targeting policing and
  community problems
• Increase police-community interaction and
  information flow
• Reduce the incidence of certain types of
  offending and undesirable behaviour
• Increase community satisfaction with police
• Increase the public's sense of safety and
• Contribute positively to the Police Service
  Strategic Plan.

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• Neighbourhood Watch is a program organised by the
  community in order to reduce residential crime.
  It is about working together as a community to
  improve our personal safety and household
  security. Most importantly, it is about
  encouraging interaction and a sense of
  responsibility between neighbours and
  communities.

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• Householders are encouraged to join together in
  small informal groups for the purpose of
  improving the safety of their families and other
  neighbourhood residents. It is not a police
  scheme. Police only lend their expertise to
  enable residents to organise themselves for the
  purpose of minimising crime in their community.
  Neighbourhood Watch will only work if the
  community supports the scheme.

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Home Assist Secure

• Free information includes
• The Home Checklist BookProvides practical advice
  about common home maintenance problems and
  solutions, home safety, legal and consumer
  protection issues, and sources of further
  specialised information.

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Home Assist Secure

• Security Hints for You and Your Home
• Provides information on how to make your home
  more secure and increase your personal security.
  Subsidised Assistance Assists people who are
  unable to obtain alternative assistance with
  minor home and yard maintenance and repairs.

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Home Assist Secure

• Home Security Assessments
• Police trained security assessors can inspect
  your home to help you decide on security-related
  repairs or installation of security hardware.
  They can also advise on personal safety issues.
  This service is only available in locations
  throughout the state where this program is
  operating.

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Home Assist Secure

• Who is an eligible person?
• To be eligible for free information and advice,
  you must be a home owner or live in private
  rental housing and be
• 60 years or over or
• of any age with a disability (or living with a
  family member who has a disability).

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Home Assist Secure

• In addition to the above, to receive subsidised
  assistance for work in their home, they need to
  be
• in receipt of a Commonwealth Government pension
  or benefit
• a resident in an area serviced by a Home Assist /
  Secure project
• and unable to make use of alternative forms of
  assistance, such as family or friends, or other
  government programmes e.g. Home and Community
  Care, Veterans Affairs, etc.

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Police Citizens Youth Club

• The Queensland Police-Citizens Youth Welfare
  Association has made a valuable and positive
  contribution to the future of countless young
  people since it first began activities in 1948.

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Police Citizens Youth Club

• Through the hard work of Police Officers, staff
  and thousands of caring volunteers and members of
  the community a tradition has developed that is
  unique to Australia.

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Police Citizens Youth Club Objectives

• Included in the formation of the PCYC was a list
  of objectives which can be found in the
  "Memorandum of Association". These nine
  objectives provide a framework around which the
  activity programmes of the PCYC branches are
  based.
• These are -

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Police Citizens Youth Club Objectives

• 1.To afford the young people of Queensland the
  opportunity to participate in clean and healthy
  recreation.
• 2.To improve the standard of physical fitness.
• 3.To encourage an interest in Australian flora
  and fauna.
• 4.To encourage the principles of good citizenship.

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Police Citizens Youth Club Objectives

• 5.To encourage and foster music, literature, art
  and culture.
• 6.To awaken citizens to their responsibilities
  towards adolescents.
• 7.To assist boys and girls to select their future
  vocations.

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Police Citizens Youth Club Objectives

• 8.To promote the physical, mental and social
  welfare of youth, who, by physical or other
  handicaps or because of the indigent
  circumstances of their parents, may be regarded
  as under - privileged.

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Police Citizens Youth Club Objectives

• 9.To do anything conducive to the welfare of
  youth and citizens generally. Whilst the
  objectives may be reminiscent of the time when
  they were written, the general message remains
  just as relevant and important today as it was
  then. To provide all possible guidance to assist
  young people through their formative years.

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Adopt a Cop

• The Adopt a Cop programme was implemented in 1985
  as a means of building a better relationship
  between the police and children in the school
  community. The programme is designed to permit
  the volunteer police officer to work with his/her
  local school in fostering a better relationship
  between the Police Service and students.

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Adopt a Cop

• The programme has been rejuvenated to provide
  training and resources to enable the Officer in
  Charge of a police division to be aware of the
  involvement of police officers in the education
  of students who attend schools within their
  police division. The rejuvenated programme will
  seek to encourage and develop improved behaviour
  and more responsible attitudes of children
  towards the community in which they live.

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Adopt a Cop Aim / Objectives

• Aim
• "TO BE THE FOCAL POINT FOR THE POLICE SERVICE IN
  THE EDUCATION OF STUDENTS IN THE PRIMARY SCHOOL
  COMMUNITY
• Objectives -
• Reduce crime through education.
• Improve the attitude of students to the
  community, police and the law.
• Demonstrate the values, responsibilities and
  obligations current society deems valuable.
•  

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School Based Policing Program

• The Adopt a Cop program is not to be confused
  with the School Based Policing Program, which
  involves police participation, full time, in
  schools.

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School Based Policing Program

• The School Based Policing programme is a joint
  initiative of the Queensland Police Service and
  Education Queensland. The programme aims to
  assist school communities achieve educational,
  developmental and preventative outcomes to
  locally identified policing issues through the
  provision of a police officer to that community.

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School Based Policing Program

• The appointment of a school-based police officer
  to a school cluster (a group of schools
  comprising of one or two high schools and their
  feeder primary schools) is to assist the schools
  and the community by

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School Based Policing Program

• addressing identified needs within the school
  community
• assisting teachers in developing and presenting
  curriculum material to meet police and school
  community needs and
• undertaking initial response and investigation of
  offences within the perimeters of the school.

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School Based Policing Program

• Participation by school-based officers in the
  education of students is an integral part of the
  current approach to policing which places a
  greater emphasis on community involvement. It is
  not the intention of the programme for
  school-based police officers to undertake
  functions which would ordinarily be carried out
  by teaching staff.

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School Based Policing Program

• These officers report directly to
• the Officer in Charge, Juvenile Aid Bureau in the
  division where the cluster is located or
• where there is no Juvenile Aid Bureau, the
  Officer in Charge of the nominated division where
  the school cluster is located.

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Safety House

• The Safety House Programme is a community-based
  and-funded programme with a network of easily
  identifiable houses and businesses for use by
  children whenever they feel unsafe whilst in the
  community.

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Safety House

• A Safety House can be a house, a shop or a
  business. The programme also aims to play a
  proactive role in community safety, by providing
  safer neighbourhoods for our children and
  personal safety education programmes within
  participating schools.

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Safety House Aims

• To deter persons from coming into an area and
  approaching children whilst in the community
• To provide personal safety education programmes
  to children in participating schools.
• Through safety houses, to greatly improve the
  chance that if a child runs into the premises -
• (a) someone will be there and
• (b) they will be given help and assistance

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Safety House

• What does the programme teach children?
• To recognise the Safety House symbol as
• (a) a square plastic plate yellow in colour with
  
• (b) a black triangle showing a house with a
  smiling face
• (c) the "Working Together" logo and
• (d) the Queensland Police Service logo.

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Safety House

• To recognise Safety Houses as
• (a) houses with a Safety House plate on or as
  close as possible to the letter box.
• (b) commercial premises/business using the same
  sign but usually slightly larger and near the
  front door.

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Safety House
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2003 International Police Executive Symposium
October 11- 15, 2003Kingdom of Bahrain

• Community Policing in Queensland
• Presentation by Dr. Mark Craig, QUT Brisbane.
• m.craig_at_qut.edu.au