A community partnership established to prevent holiday maker fatalities has won the overall supreme award in this year’s Problem-Oriented Policing (POP) awards.
The awards recognise and reward Police staff for excellence in addressing long term sustainable crime prevention and reduction. The final judging round was held in Christchurch yesterday.
The Waikato initiative, Safe Summer Coromandel was a multi-agency approach chaired by the Police and created to address the high number of fatalities happening on the Coromandel Peninsula in preventable circumstances over the summer months.
Between 2011 and 2013, 35 people died on the Peninsula through crashes, violence, and alchohol and drug abuse. Incidents of serious harm also increased dramatically.
Alcohol was identified as a key driver that needed to be addressed to reduce the number of deaths. The partners demonstrated to the Thames Coromandel District Council that there was a need for a stringent Local Alcohol Plan for the area. A Facebook site was set up to promote safety messages and peer-to-peer communications.
Senior Sergeant Graham Shields who led the Waikato presentation, said the multi agency project was started because on average 12 people were dying on the peninsula every summer.
“That has dropped to 6 per year, which is still really upsetting to me, but it does show that we are heading in the right direction. We started from nothing, but we have now potentially saved six lives a summer for the last two years. I won't claim success until holiday maker fatalities reach zero,” he said.
The Waikato project also won the award for excellence in achieving collective impact.
“This award recognises everyone involved in this team. It’s not just police's project,” he said.
Waitemata District won the award for excellence in reducing repeat victimisation award for their work in improving service to family violence victims.
Southern District won the award for excellence in reducing harm from the drivers of crime for reducing serious injury crash rates in the District through targeting safety messages to the growing number of visiting drivers in the district over the summer.
Deputy Chief Executive Strategy for NZ Police, Mark Evans said the POP Awards were a great opportunity to celebrate local policing at its best and all the staff involved should be very proud of the work they had done to reduce harm and victimisation in their communities.
“It was a great night with some innovative and inspirational presentations from five district teams supported by their partner agencies and it was a tough decision for the judges to choose the winners with the quality of entries put forward.”
“The passion these officers have for their projects and their communities is inspiring and makes us all very proud of the work they do.”
ENDS
Jane Archibald
NZ Police 021 192 2912