Give us a call… Senior Constable Chris Milne, First Class Constable Kath Whitfield and Constable John Thompson.
Camera IconGive us a call… Senior Constable Chris Milne, First Class Constable Kath Whitfield and Constable John Thompson. Credit: Supplied/Jon Hewson        www.communitypix.com.au d438857

Local police keeping in touch

Emma ClaytonMelville Gazette

They’ve never been so easy to get on the phone, according to the latest statistics released by Police Minister Liza Harvey.

Mrs Harvey said last week that people had embraced the idea of calling their Local Policing Teams (LPTs) to discuss crime issues in their neighbourhoods, since the teams had been given their own mobiles nine months ago.

She said in a recent review conducted over six days, members of the public contacted the 148 LPT mobiles on 472 occasions.

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“I’m encouraged the public has embraced the Local Policing Team mobile phone initiative, which along with growing social media use, is helping to build on the relationship between officers and their community,” she said.

The minister praised the professionalism of Local Policing Teams, which returned 95 per cent of unanswered calls within 24 hours.

Mrs Harvey said it was important for callers to leave a message if their call went unanswered.

A key initiative of the Frontline 2020 model is each LPT having its own mobile phone number.

This gives members of the community the ability to ring their team directly to discuss local community issues.

Mrs Harvey said LPT mobiles were only to discuss non-urgent local issues with local police.