District policing teams linked to response units introduced to Adelaide metropolitan suburban neighbourhoods in 2019
The four metropoltan Adelaide districts (see map and staff structure for each district) for South Australia Police introduced from 2019. Within each distrist would be 12 teams allocated to paying attention to groups of suburbs to build a greater knowledge of that local area. Examples of suburbs allocated to teams in the eastern district are shown.
Image courtesy South Australian police
The district policing model was applied to metropolitan Adelaide by South Australia Police in 2019, with seven Local Service Areas (LSAs) continuing to cover regional and remote parts of the state.
The model aimed to equalise demand for police services across four metropolitan districts: northern, western, eastern and southern. It replaced the concept of police patrols with two groups: response teams (similar to current uniform patrols) and new district policing teams allocated to groups of suburbs within each district. District policing was intended to provide significant surge to responses during high demand; build a visible, accessible and consistent police presence; and better protect high risk and repeat victims.
Increasing police officers available to respond to calls for assistance was to be met by increasing supervisory sergeants to supervise response and district policing teams and introducing 108 brevet sergeant positions in response and district policing teams. More police officers would be allocated to child and family investigations.
Other inititiative included:
* increasing victim contact services in each district,
* increasing intelligence analytical support to better inform operational decisions at all levels,
• a telephone resolution function within the communications centre to reduce demand for response resources,
• a 24/7 state response manager at the communications centre to manage resource deployed across the metropolitan area according to demand and regardless of district boundaries,
* a centralised 24/7 investigations support desk to provide real-time intelligence, investigations support to front-line resources and to provide consistent quality assurance.
• a centralised 24/7 state crime assessment centre to provide consistent and standardised quality assurance of crime reporting, reduce administrative demand on front-line supervision by vetting and allocating all crime incidents, and reduce organisational risk from errors of front-line practice.
• Increasing resources allocated to the quality assurance of police court files to improve quality and to reduce administrative demand on front-line resources.
The six neighbourhood policing teams operating in the metropolitan area would be expanded to 48 district police teams – 12 for each district – covering every suburb in the metropolitan area. Each team would include a sergeant, brevet sergeant (second in charge) and constables/senior constables. It was to be the role of each team to understand its local area, know who was committing crime, know who needed help and act to stop the cycle of crime and victimisation.
District policing teams might use corporate programmes such as Neighbourhood Watch and Blue Light supported by the district community engagement coordinator and the state community engagement section.
