Possible help in sniffing out crime

A SOUTH Australian police dog has been flown in to trial whether it’s an effective tool at tracking down crooks on the run in Tasmania.

Tasmania Police is the only force in the country not to have tracking dogs.

But that may change with police looking at ways to combat a surge in police evasions happening across the state.

“Tasmania Police is undertaking an operational demonstration of a general purpose dog in frontline operations,” Commander Tony Cerritelli told the Mercury.

“Tasmania Police is assessing the general purpose dog in tracking drivers who evade police.”

A dog handler from South Australia Police has been brought in for the trial and sworn in as a “Special Constable of Tasmania Police”.

The team is working alongside Tasmanian police on the beat over the next few weeks to trial the special capability.

Police Association of Tasmania president Pat Allen has made repeated calls for a police tracking dog unit to be established here.

“They’ve really got to start taking some hard decisions on this,” he said.

Police evasions have increased from 693 in 2014-15 to 1598 in the last financial year.

Police Minister Rene Hidding has labelled it an “epidemic” and introduced new laws, which took effect this week, to tackle the problem.

The new laws impose a maximum sentence of up to five years and maximum penalty of $15,900.

Time to locate an evading car has been extended from two weeks to two months, and police will be able to arrest offenders on reasonable grounds without a warrant six months after an incident.