SCHOOL BASED POLICING THE WAY TO GO!

Great news for the Northern Territory! It’s now 12 months since School Based Police were re-introduced to Northern Territory Schools. That reintroduction would never have taken place, had it not been for pressures exerted by some educators and by the Council of Government Schools Organisation (COGSO).

This program, initially introduced in the 1980s, was quite outstandingly successful up to that point in time when it was dropped. That was a very poor decision, one made against the grain of expressed Northern Territory opinion.

There were various reasons the program was discontinued or at least allowed to run down. I won’t go into those at the moment, other than to restate the decision to have been one of sad consequence.

Reinstating the program means that it has had to start all over and rebuild the confidence schools in the community had in school-based police before the program is dropped. There was some tentative nice about reintroduction but sense and sensibility prevailed.

Twelve months on from its reintroduction there has been an evaluation done on the program. It has been given the thumbs up, the green light and hopefully will stay in place and expand further with the passing of time.

I most sincerely hope it’s never canned again.