Redfern’s new police commander

After seven weeks in the job, he feels excited about the work here and is already imagining all sorts of projects with the community. When he worked in Manly, he also lived there with his family, including an 18-year-old son. His son’s age made him far more conscious that, in working to make that area safe for others, he was also creating a safe place for his own now young adult son. It challenged and brought his work alive in a special way.

Since his arrival in Redfern, he is reaffirming his belief in high visibility police work – the presence of police out and about in the community, visiting local groups, talking with people on the streets and building trusting relationships. He would like a return to the day when parents told their children to trust the police as their friends and helpers.

In Manly, he was known for his commitment to police fitness and had them jogging along the beaches among the people. In Redfern, he plans to have police, including himself, working out in local gyms and practicing boxing with the locals. He has already been to Tony Mundine’s gym and is going to continue to do some training there.

One of his first projects was to plan, with officer Georgie Israel, an Oz Tag Football competition with kids from The Block. The matches would be played on a grassy area there and the police would share food with the kids and parents after matches. They have already had a match at Wentworth Park, which the Aboriginal kids won! The Commander believes that to “hang around” with young people and parents not only builds better relationships but helps enhance the possibility of law-abiding life for the future.

He encourages his officers to mingle with the community in all sorts of environments – like the NAIDOC Week events and community markets in Alexandria Park. Two of his officers recently left him a message saying how much they enjoyed going to the markets and how impressed they were with the standard of goods sold there.

Having said all that, he knows that policing is not as simple as building relationships. It is mostly about acting effectively to deal with and prevent crime, especially crimes like drug trafficking. He believes that, when people report things they expect to see results and recognises that community members are often able to pass on to the police real information about what goes on beneath the surface.

He doesn’t see policing as the answer to everything – obviously the police are not trained counsellors, etc. They are fundamentally those who try to reduce crime in an area. He sees the force as one element in a number of community resource groups and agencies and imagines them conferring with others in creating a better place for people to live. His people already meet with agencies like the Redfern Waterloo Authority and the staff of the City of Sydney as well as other service groups.

He will be showcasing the policing work at Redfern to diverse communities around the country by representing it at state-wide conferences and consultations.

In the meantime, he applauds the officers of the Redfern command, with whom he now works and, at the same time, invites the community to give him a reality check in the days ahead.

The South Sydney Herald wishes him well!

Photo: Ali Blogg - Commander Luke Freudenstein