Latest / Early Edition with Ryan Bridge / Mark Mitchell: Police Minister on new police recruits

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Mark Mitchell: Police Minister on new police recruits · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: We've got trouble with new police recruits. A survey of
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: senior officers released of The Herald says graduates are barely
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: equipped to arrest or lay charges. Eighty three percent of
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: respondents reckon that they can't even handle the paperwork properly.
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: Mark Mitchell as Police Minister and joins me. Now Minister,
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: good morning, Heay, good morning Ryan. Are we pumping out
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: half baked cops?
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  Speaker 2: No? I don't think we're definitely not pumping out half
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: baked police officers. But it's always been the case that
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: they do. Obviously, they do their twenty weeks. Now I return,
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  Speaker 2: I increase the courses from sixteen weeks to twenty weeks,
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  Speaker 2: as Zenoy Minister, and then they have two years probationary
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: where they get to all be on the job supervision
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  Speaker 2: and training that they need to become world class police officers.
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  Speaker 2: And we have a world class police service has no
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  Speaker 2: doubt about that. It's good that the police are always
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: testing themselves, that they're having honest conversation, that they're identifying
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: where there needs to be improvement. My expectation is where
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: they identify that, then they make the changes.
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: Is fifty five percent of the senior officers feeling that
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: the new bees were barely or not at all well
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  Speaker 1: equipped with knowledge of the procedures for making an arrest
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  Speaker 1: and laying charges world class.
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: Well, you're talking about probationary constables. You're talking about constables
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  Speaker 2: that are coming out on the job. They see your
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  Speaker 2: polessing is a very unique job where you have to test,
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  Speaker 2: where you get tested, and a whole range of areas,
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  Speaker 2: physically making decisions under pressure, all that sort of thing.
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  Speaker 2: It's unrealistic to expect them to come out being experienced
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  Speaker 2: police officers. They are rookies. They need strong supervision, they
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  Speaker 2: need guidance when they come out on the street. They
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: are probationary constables for two years, so they're still being
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: tested for another two years once they graduated from the college.
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: But the good thing is that is that they're identified
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  Speaker 2: so that our senior field trainers, who absolutely provide critical
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: feedback to the college are saying that there's some areas
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: that need will focus my expectations, the police will recognize
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: that and I'll make the changes. When I was in opposition,
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: I was highlighting this and continually with the previous government
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  Speaker 2: not to drop standards to maintain standards as the income
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  Speaker 2: and government. We had a big focus on that. Yes
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  Speaker 2: we had a target set, but if I was solely
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  Speaker 2: focused on the target, I wouldn't have increased the training
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  Speaker 2: course from sixteen weeks to twenty weeks.
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  Speaker 1: But yeah, but you also ministered to increase the wing
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  Speaker 1: size from eighty to one hundred. You do have a
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  Speaker 1: target with New Zealand first week.
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: No, it's not correct, that's not correct, right. The wing
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: sizes are not one hundred. Every wing size, winder size size,
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  Speaker 2: it was like that. Well, some of them are seventy,
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: some of them are less, some of them are more.
• 2:38
  Speaker 3: But so you didn't move to increase the wing size.
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: We moved to increase the capacity of the college to
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  Speaker 2: be able to train. To fund that, so you saw, yes,
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: of course we funded it, so massive funding.
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: It's the problem here with the training or with the
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  Speaker 1: candidates that are getting in, because we know there's been
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  Speaker 1: problems there too.
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  Speaker 3: Well, you know that.
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  Speaker 2: There's been a big focus on standards and quality of
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: training by this government. You know that we're not going
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  Speaker 2: to compromise. We've been very clear and said we're not
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: going to compromise on the settings of targets. We want
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  Speaker 2: to deliver five hundred diditional police.
• 3:13
  Speaker 3: If there's a result of that, it's not a great outcome.
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: Is it.
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  Speaker 1: I mean, yes, we want more cops, but we want
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  Speaker 1: more good cops.
• 3:20
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: Absolutely, And I just want to say again that come
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: along to a graduation meet. These police officers are some
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: of the best. Keywis that we've got to put themselves
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  Speaker 2: forward for service and difficult to.
• 3:30
  Speaker 3: The media senior officers saying this about them.
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: Then, because the police as an organization that tests itself hard,
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: they realize that they have to maintain the higher standards.
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: That's exactly what the field officers are doing. They're guiding them,
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: they're training them, but they're making sure they identify where
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: we could be doing better. And any organization should be
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: looking for continual improvement. The police is no different. In fact,
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: it's critically important for the police. Yes, as the incoming Mitister,
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: I recognized the fact that we needed to work on
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: standards on trading. That's why as the incoming Minister, I
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: supported moving our recruit training course from sixteen weeks to
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: twenty weeks. I increased that by four weeks. That wasn't
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: going to help us deliver our five hundred, but I
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  Speaker 2: felt it was very important to do in terms of standards.
• 4:16
  Speaker 3: Mark Mental Police Minister.
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: For more from Early Edition with Ryan Bridge.
• 4:20
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• 4:22
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• 4:25
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