‘Public input’ in police called for

Press, 21 June 1984, Page 6

‘Public input’ in police called for

PA Wellington The Labour leader, Mr Lange, last evening called for more public involvement in the way the police worked. He also told an electorate dinner in Wairarapa that a Labour government would not put the police at the bottom of its list of priorities.

A need existed for some kind of real public input into the way the police worked, he said. The police must be responsive to the community’s needs. One possibility for more involvement was to set up a Parliamentary select committee to consult on the role of the police in the community.

Mr Lange said he believed that a Labour government should create a special police task group to

look at criminal activities from the misappropriation of goods, money, and other property through to malpractices in computers and other technical equipment and “wrongful, deceptive, and illegal commercial operations.” A Labour government should also establish a three-year staffing programme for the police, he said. That would help forward planning and ensure present and future staffing needs were promptly met. “The new Labour government should promote further recruitment of Maoris, Pacific Islanders, and women into the police in order to make the police more representative of the community,” he said. Labour would also expand community police stations as quickly as staff and offices allowed.