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Legislative Council - Fifty-Third Parliament, Second Session (53-2)
2016-06-08 Daily Xml
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Domestic Violence

The Hon. K.L. VINCENT (14:57): Supplementary: can the minister elaborate on what level of training the police have received or continue to receive in terms of identifying where an adult, in particular, might be experiencing domestic violence and might need assistance to communicate that, such as a person with a brain injury or an intellectual disability of some kind?

The Hon. P. MALINAUSKAS (Minister for Police, Minister for Correctional Services, Minister for Emergency Services, Minister for Road Safety) (14:57): I am advised that SAPOL is regularly updating its training. As I said earlier, I was down at the police academy only in the last couple of weeks and was able to get a substantial briefing from the committed staff within SAPOL who deal with the training of new cadets, but also the training of ongoing police officers.

One of the great challenges that exists within SAPOL is to make sure that we are constantly updating officers with the changing environment of policing, and this is something that we have to be ready to remind ourselves of as a government and also as a community at large, that policing is not a stagnating effort. The policing methods that SAPOL adopted 20 years ago aren't necessarily appropriate today. We have to make sure, and SAPOL is very committed to making sure, that all their officers aren't just getting trained on what might have been best practice 20 years ago or 10 years ago, but what is best practice now.

Combined with best practice changes, of course, is the changing nature of the challenges and demands that are being put in front of SAPOL. We have seen, over a sustained period of time, very substantial steps forward in terms of community behaviour around particular types of issues. A good example of this is drink driving. Society's attitudes towards issues like wearing seatbelts and drink driving have progressed in an enormous way, which may, of course, mean we need to adapt the policing methods that accompany such policy challenges, and domestic violence is a good example of this.

I am happy to seek further information in regard to training modules that specifically go to the issue of domestic violence, but I just want to assure the chamber and the Hon. Ms Vincent that SAPOL is constantly evolving and constantly adapting and updating their training regimes and their training modules to ensure that not just new cadets but also the police force more generally is at the cutting edge of dealing with new issues as they arise within the community.

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