Police in the Hunter are being incorrectly used to transport prisoners who should be in the care of the state's corrective services system, taking officers away from core duties, according to submissions to a NSW Parliamentary inquiry into community safety in the regions.
The inquiry, which started under a cross-party committee in March, will report on youth crime, recidivism, diversionary services, and police staffing levels in regional NSW.
In its submission, the Police Association of NSW said pressure being placed on officers "to perform roles that should be done by other agencies", such as prisoner transport, was exacerbating under-staffing and an increased work demand in regional communities.
The association said there were 6228 officers across 71 stations in metropolitan Sydney, but 4961 in 328 stations in regional NSW - 90 per cent of metro stations operated 24 hours, compared with 14 per cent of regional stations.
The union said the NSW government needed to "urgently address" the workload and number of job vacancies in the force and ensure Corrective Services NSW "immediately commence the transport of prisoners who have been bail refused, as has long been intended".
"Police officers are frequently required to transport prisoners to and from police facilities, custody facilities or a court, sometimes hundreds of kilometres," the submission said.
"This means they are away from their Command for hours at a time, making them unavailable to perform their core duties like responding to emergency calls or conducting patrols.
"The NSW Government must minimise the time police are required to spend transporting prisoners as much as possible. It has long been the intent of the NSW Government for this to occur. However, in regional NSW, police are still performing a large volume of transport of bail refused prisoners."
The Nationals' Upper Hunter MP Dave Layzell in his submission backed the police union's recommendations, and said "incorrectly" using police for prisoner transport was an issue particularly in Singleton and Muswellbrook.
"This is a consistent issue throughout the electorate and a major problem for regional towns," he wrote.
"For example, there are cases when multiple prisoners are picked up from the Shortland Correctional Centre, Cessnock or Newcastle for court appearances in Muswellbrook.
"If there are Corrective Services protection prisoners involved then they require separate trucks to be used as opposed to general duties police patrol vehicles. The two types of prisoners cannot be mixed under the rules. As a result, they now require separate police vehicles to transport them to the court. This further diminishes the presence of police in the community.
"These prisoners have already been remanded in custody, so why would police now have to be involved again. This seems to be a complete waste of NSW Police resources when Corrective Services are the ones who should manage persons in custody."
An initial report will be tabled next May, before a final report is due by November 30, 2025.
