Pegasus Post: January 24, 2017

4
Tuesday January 24 2017
Your Local Views
PEGASUS POST
Maintaining trust and confidence
This week’s
opinion piece
is written by
Canterbury
district police
commander
Superintendent John Price
about modern day policing
I am extremely proud of the
police team who serve the people
and make a difference to the
community every minute of
every day as our team keep the
peace and ensure the public will
be safe and feel safe.
In New Zealand our police
have the implicit consent of the
community.
In order to do this we must be
seen as policing with integrity
and with accountability.
Essentially we must have the
trust and confidence of the community.
Policing by consent follows the
principles, ideas and ideals of Sir
Robert Peel which define an ethical
police organisation.
These ‘Peelian Principles’ are
as relevant today as they were in
1829 when they were established.
Police, at all times, should
maintain a relationship with the
public that gives reality to the
historic tradition that the police
are the public, and the public are
the police.
We maintain the highest level
of ‘full trust and confidence’ of
any policing organisation in the
world, at about 80 per cent.
By comparison, some policing
jurisdictions have trust and confidence
levels lower that 10 per
cent, demonstrating that those
organisations are not widely seen
as ethical and trustworthy.
If you have travelled overseas
you will have seen examples of
policing organisations whose approach
is to police with fear and
only force.
We place enormous importance
on maintaining and fostering
the trust and confidence of
our communities and we work
hard to ensure we maintain our
core values and hold each other
to account.
Having been a member for 30
years I think the community is
justified in having trust and confidence
in this organisation.
In Canterbury we want to
ensure that people can be safe
and feel safe and I’m sure that is a
sentiment you will share.
Our focus is on reducing harm
caused to families, whether that
be through violence in the home,
death and injury on the roads,
drug use or dishonesty offending.
We also want to empower
communities to work together,
support each other and to speak
up when something isn’t right.
We work very closely with
a range of agencies and community
groups to ensure people
receive the support they need and
deserve.
Over the past year we have
targeted those bringing illegal
drugs and firearms into our
communities and as a result have
seized 140 illegal firearms.
Each one of those is potentially
a life saved.
We have also prevented significant
amounts of illegal drugs in
getting to our streets.
We are very lucky in that we
receive a lot of positive feedback
from members of the community
for the work we do.
To those people who have taken
the time to contact us I would
like you to know that your words
of support mean a lot to myself
and my team who come to work
every day to make a difference in
the lives of everyone so that we
can be the safest country.
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