Police in Maitland are being pulled from the frontline to monitor known sex offenders placing the community at risk, according to the NSW Police Association.
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The association is calling for four dedicated police officers in Maitland’s police district to monitor pedophiles in the community and help protect children.
“I’m not disparaging the police who are doing it now,” Mr Allwood said. “They are doing a great job but they’re being pulled from the frontlines and the association is saying that it’s not an either-or situation.
“We must acknowledge that this is a really emotive issue and that we are protecting the most vulnerable members of our community – the children.
“You have to remember that there’s a lot of people on bail, in jail that will soon get parole and will soon get on the register – we’re not going to see a drop off, it’s a growth area.”
Mr Allwood said the Northern Region, which stretches from the Central Coast to Tweed Heads, has approximately 1100 registered sex offenders, while there are 4000 statewide.
“We basically have better than one-third of registrable persons in the North Region so it’s something that we definitely have to manage and look after,” he said.
“The legislation in this area is strong. Police have the powers to actively monitor and stop these offenders targeting our children but we just don’t have the resources to do it properly.”
The association is calling for one dedicated full-time officer for every 30 registrable persons and Mr Allwood said they were pushing for four officers to monitor offenders in the Port Stephens-Hunter District, which comprises Maitland, Raymond Terrace and Nelson Bay.
They are also calling for a further four for the Hunter Valley district.
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“We know that 46 per cent of these registerable persons will reoffend within four years and they are the ones we are detecting now,” Mr Allwood said.
“The simple fact is, the monitoring of them, although it sounds almost heavy handed, we’re almost helping these people not to reoffend.
“We need more police to lock up pedophiles but every conviction means another person on the Child Protection Register. So we also need police in our commands and districts to monitor them in our communities. It’s time to resource these squads and our districts and commands so we can keep our children safe.”
