Police officer lauds crime reporting line
The Crime Reporting Line (CRL) is a centralised, non-emergency reporting channel that will free up frontline staff, making Waikato police more accessible, professional and victim-focused, Senior Sergeant Tim Anderson says.
The introduction of CRL in the Waikato is a continuation of the Waikato Tomorrow strategy introduced last year and an enhancement on the recent centralisation of telephony.
‘‘What this means is that when the public ring police, their call will be triaged within our district and either put through to the person they need to speak to or, if it is a non-emergency matter, put through to the CRL call taker in Auckland for the complaint to be formally recorded,’’ Mr Anderson said.
‘‘Once the complaint has been recorded the electronic case is reviewed by the File (Complaint) Management Centre in Hamilton where an assessment is made as to whether there are further avenues of inquiry or the case is closed.’’
He said the 24/7 CRL service is not new technology; it has been well tested and streamlined in trials in a number of other police districts including Eastern, Canterbury, Auckland, Counties Manukau and the Bay of Plenty before this national roll-out.
‘‘A number of benefits from CRL have been identified already.
‘‘ On average the processing time of a complaint has been reduced to 12 minutes from receipt of call to an electronic case being created,’’ Mr Anderson said.
‘‘In addition, the creation of a case automatically generates a complaint acknowledgement form (required by insurance companies) and this form and crime prevention advice is emailed or posted out to the victim.
‘‘This alleviates the need for victims to queue up at police stations while freeing up our staff to spend more time being visible out on the streets.’’
Mr Anderson said the innovations don’t stop with CRL with the Prime Minister announcing the launch of the police’s mobility programme recently.
‘‘ All these enhancements are about enabling officers to do what they joined police for in the first place: going out and helping people by either catching offenders or preventing crime from happening.
‘‘ The introduction of smartphones and iPads to the Waikato as part of the mobilisation project begins in the next few months. This follows the centralisation of file management, district intelligence and work force management to ensure the right people (our staff) are in the right place at the right time to prevent crime.’’
Mr Anderson said with the implementation of CRL adding to benefits identified from the centralisation projects, the Waikato is well placed to reduce the number of victims while enhancing service to our community.