Victoria Police New Operational Response Principles Review

Victoria Police recently introduced its new Operational Response Principles. In this video, Russell goes into some details about what this is and what it means to you as a Police Applicant.

Here’s the Video Transcription:

G’day, Russell here, from Prime Motion Training. If you’re an applicant, no doubt you’re keeping your eyes and ears open around issues that might affect Victoria Police, as an organisation, things that you might want to stay up to speed with, as an applicant, if you are applying to join the organisation. You may have spotted recently, Victoria Police introduced their new Operational Response Principles, and in this video, and I want to go into a little bit of detail about that issue.

If you’re an [00:00:30] existing Prime Motion Training member, you may want to have a look in the recruits training section, under the study sessions. The 10 Operational Safety Principles are in that area and we discuss them in detail. Now, they’re very, very relevant to what’s just been introduced, and I think this new approach to operational response principles is likely to replace the existing 10 Operational Safety Principles that have been around for many, many years, now. I think it’s a really positive thing. It’s a much more simple approach, and easier for members [00:01:00] to be able to understand and to keep in mind.

Now, the first one talks about service, and in the Police Regulations Act, there’s some information there about what’s expected of members. The organisational values, of course, we’ll outline again, what sort of service and what sort of expectations are in place for the organization’s members, the Code of Conduct is important, the Code of Ethics. If you look at the Code of Ethics in detail, it talks about being impartial and acting with integrity and giving excellent service. So all of these things are very [00:01:30] relevant to this first principle of service.

Now, the second one talks about safety. Of course, it’s huge, and about 12 months ago Victoria Police introduced safety as a new organisational value. So risk assessments and taking charge of situations in order to mitigate risks involved, and the 10 Operational Safety Principles will all be very relevant in regards to maintaining the safest possible environment that we can.

Now, the third issue was around [00:02:00] harm minimization, and this is huge. The ability to reduce danger, reduce injury, and any kind of harm to either public, the police, or even offenders involved in incidents is really, really important, but, for me, a big one is going to be back to those 10 Operational Safety Principles, where the initial approach would usually be to cordon and manage a particular situation. Now, that decision is going to have to be made, given the environment that we live in these days, and I discussed the threat of terrorism [00:02:30] and active shooters in a previous video, but now that that decision to either cordon and manage or actively engage and try to resolve a situation is going to be really paramount to minimising harm.

That sticking point, or that point, that fork in the road is a big, big part of harm minimization. There’s going to be some pressure on members, which have to operate in very stressful situations. But if we go back to just summarising the three, we’ve got service, safety, and harm [00:03:00] minimization. They’re the new Operational Response Principles and, as an applicant, it’s something that you should be aware of and familiarise yourself with.

I hope you found that helpful. If you have any questions or comments, feel free to contact me, otherwise, I look forward to seeing you in another video, soon. Cheers.

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