Jarrod Gilbert: Why I believe the future of New Zealand’s frontline police is in fine shape

From everything I observed, the future of New Zealand’s frontline police is in fine shape. Photo / Mark Mitchell

Promises to increase the number of front-line police by 300 have been made by both National and Labour. Over the last three months, I’ve watched first-hand what the recruiting process is.

I was lucky enough to be the patron for the latest cohort of new officers, Wing 369. I say lucky enough because Wing 369 is the greatest police wing to go through training college, something I told the Police Minister, Ginny Andersen, at the graduation of the recruits. The Minister replied to me, “Jarrod, that’s what all patrons say.”

“Well, finally a patron is telling you the truth,” I replied.

When I addressed the recruits on their first day at the training college in Porirua, they were dressed in civilian clothing and they looked rather like any one of my classes at university. Over the 16-week course, I watched them evolve into a team of police officers. It was a marked transformation. And one that put most of my university students to shame.

The 67 recruits who started the course were divided into four sections, and each section assigned a primary trainer to guide them through the four months ahead. Each week one of the recruits would write a blog, updating me on their progress and what they were doing. Every couple of weeks I visited the training college to see for myself. It was remarkable to view the commitment of the recruits and how they worked together.

This was particularly evident when I visited during the Physical Competency Test (PCT). The PCT involves a course of obstacles that are designed to mimic things police officers may have to navigate (jumping through windows, over fences and walls etc), and it has to be completed in a set time. I attempted the course. In my mind I was a gazelle, darting and weaving over every barrier with ease. Photos proved that to be a fiction.

The way the recruits encouraged and supported those who struggled was remarkable. I was observing the secondary lesson – not overcoming physical obstacles – but learning to be part of a team.

The next big change came with the police uniforms. Just like that, recruits seemed a couple of centimetres taller, shoulders appeared to draw back, chests out. But the physical changes were accompanied by mental ones. The course work is formidable. Laws, policing strategies, search and constraint techniques come by battalion and each is important to not just learn but to understand and implement.

And not everybody gets through. As with the PCT, key elements of the course must be passed, and those who didn’t had to do more work and resit. These were difficult times for people missing their whānau after many weeks.

I was impressed by the trainers. Any learning institution is only as good as the people who teach there. To a person, I found the trainers outstanding. Full of knowledge, but also great communicators. And I was forced to learn some of the lessons, too. I was slightly too excited by firearms training. The trainer had a word with me: firearms are simply tools to keep people safe, no different to other tools and we should just see them as that.

It is an important message, but just one of hundreds of such lessons that these new recruits need to absorb, in what is really a very short timeframe. Going from civilian to a police officer with great power and responsibility happens swiftly.

And while training is ongoing once recruits return to their districts, they have to be ready for what the street throws at them. One of the police officers who responded to the Queen Street shooting was not long out of the college. As the recruits of 369 went on a week of deployment to their stations, the reality of the job ahead became apparent.

Errors of law or process can result in offenders walking free. Errors in behaviour will reflect on the trust and confidence in the entire police service. There are numerous jobs that face great pressures, and certainly being a police officer is one of them.

By week 16, Wing 369 were ready to graduate. In front of friends, whānau, the police commissioner and the Police Minister, they lined up. Those who topped different sections of training received awards, they did a tremendous haka, and finally they threw their caps into the air.

In communities up and down the country, recruits from Wing 369, New Zealand’s newest police officers, now patrol the streets. I couldn’t be more pleased having seen them transform, or prouder of them.

From everything I observed, the future of New Zealand’s frontline police is in fine shape.

Dr Jarrod Gilbert is the Director of Independent Research Solutions and a sociologist at the University of Canterbury.