Number of NSW Police with Criminal Records has Doubled Last Five Years
"The number of New South Wales (NSW) police officers with criminal records has more than doubled over the last five years. Around one in 40 serving officers have committed criminal offences, some as serious as assault, drink driving, fraud and the illegal use of guns. NSW Police says efforts to weed out those who've committed offences are sometimes thwarted by the Industrial Relations Commission, which frequently reinstates sacked cops. NSW Police acting commissioner David Hudson says that police officers ""are assessed on their individual merits and a decision made as to whether those individuals have, those individual police officers have lost their entitlement to be a police officer."" Even though it may be frustrating for the commissioner to have a decision overturned, Hudson says that he can 't comment on the courts ' determinations. ""There is a huge cost to the community of NSW in relation to training these officers and whether one mistake curtails their career, in many instances it does because of the level of criminality but some of the lower levels of criminality, the decision is made for them to remain in the police."""