Newcastle will be getting its share of additional police with more officers specifically for Strike Force Raptor to be based in the area.
The NSW Government announced there would be 550 additional police rolled out over the next 12 months across general duties, domestic violence specialists, police prosecutors, counter terrorism police and the organised crime squad.
NSW Police Commissioner Karen Webb said almost 100 officers will go to regional NSW and 50 to the metropolitan CBD of Sydney.
“125 officers will go into specialist areas which includes 15 officers into high risk DV teams and 10 officers into our rural crime teams and 30 officers will be added to our Raptor Squad which will go 15 to the North and 15 to the South which will bolster those police resources already there,”
“We really look forward to bolstering and putting extra resources into areas of greater need”
“Already the officers in those units do amazing work and extra officers will only bolster the work that can be done and the reach,” the Commissioner said.
“15 extra Raptor officers will be going into the Newcastle area. We know that the Newcastle area and that part of the state has a high concentration of organised crime networks and OMCG networks,” she said.
The NSW Government is coming good on an election promise from 2018 to boost the police numbers across NSW.
NSW Labor say it’s all “smoke and mirrors” though and we still don’t have enough police on the ground.