Chester Borrows MP
National Party Police Spokesman

Labour just keeps hiring more decoy cops

The Labour Government continues to allow the police to employ more and more 'decoy cops', despite the chance that these relatively untrained personnel could be placed in dangerous situations, says National's Police spokesman, Chester Borrows.

He is releasing figures which show that the number of 'decoy cops', or temporary sworn constables, has increased to 374 in 2007 - up from just 17 in 2005.

"It seems to me that Labour was not listening last year when there were a series of problems with putting decoy cops into frontline roles:

* One causing traffic chaos in Christchurch because he didn't know how to turn off a patrol car's flashing lights.

* Using pepper spray in Lower Hutt court cells and a fire hose in Tauranga police cells to control prisoners.

* Being sent to an assault but not able to call for help because it took 10 minutes to get handcuffs on.

"Those incidents were cause for concern, and there is no reason to believe that as numbers increase there isn't an even greater chance of a repeat.

"Labour would be better to concentrate on ensuring we have the full quota of fully trained sworn officers, rather than putting half-trained people near situations which could put them and the public in harm's way.

"Jumping from 17 to 374 seems to be asking for trouble."

ENDS

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