Sunshine police station is one of 22 stations across the state to benefit from Victoria Police’s expansion of its custody officer program.
The station will soon have supervising police custody officers to manage its cells, considered one of the busiest in Victoria.
Currently police station cells are managed by police members who have been rostered on for custody duty.
Sunshine Sergeant Mark Allen said the supervising police custody officers would free up those police officers to return to frontline duties.
“They’ll release the police sergeant from having full oversight [of the cells] for the entirety of that particular day,” he said.
The new role is an expansion of the custody officer role, which was introduced in January last year.
Only Victoria’s biggest and busiest police stations with cells will be allocated someone to fill the supervisory role. Other stations include Ballarat, Geelong, Morwell, Bendigo, Broadmeadows, Mill Park and Frankston.
The supervising police custody officer will co-ordinate staff, monitor the health and wellbeing of people in custody, oversee the release of prisoners into custody, take on court escort duties and assess the performance and development of other staff.
Recruiting is now underway. Applications can be found on the Police Careers website.
Sergeant Allen said successful applicants would need to have experience managing people in custody within the past three years, and recent experience in the supervision of staff.
