Minister for Police and Corrective Services and Minister for Fire and Emergency Services, the Honourable Mark Ryan joined Queensland Police Commissioner, Katarina Carroll recently for the official opening of the new Caboolture Watch House.
The new $14.4 million watch house is equipped with the latest technology, further, the new building also provides specialist facilities to accommodate up to 40 support staff from units including the Caboolture Prosecution Corp, Domestic and Family Violence Unit, Moreton District Youth Co-Responder Team and the Moreton District Tasking and Coordination Unit.
The inaugural Officer in Charge (OIC), Senior Sergeant Heather Wallace outlined how the new facility will support the Moreton community.
“What I’m hoping for is that this facility not only supports our community, but also our frontline policing with a better response and enables them to get back out onto the road, so that our community is kept safe,” Senior Sergeant Heather Wallace said in the video below.
Meanwhile, Queensland Police Commissioner, Katarina Carroll explained how the new facility will meet demand into the future.
“It’s one of the fastest growing areas of the state,” Queensland Police Commissioner Carroll stated in the video above.
“And this facility is the demonstration of our partnership with the Queensland government, working to ensure that we not just meet current demand, but obviously the demand going ahead as well.
“It’s going to provide a comfortable area for staff and clients, and will be a safe environment and have capacity for about 30 people for short term custody basis.
“But it’s not going to be just about the watch house.
“It’s also going to be incorporating other areas that will be running from this area as well,” Commissioner Carroll said.
Mr Ryan said you would be ‘foolish’ to consider this watch house to be just a place of detention.
“This is an important investment in the frontline,” Mr Ryan asserted at the watch house opening ceremony.
“It’s an important investment in community safety and I just wanted to highlight, I think, three aspects of this project and what it will deliver for our community, because you’d be foolish to consider this (watch house) to just be a place of detention.
“You’d be foolish to think it’s just a watch house because it’s so much more than that and this is where those three elements come into place.
“It’s a place of safety.
“It’s an investment in safety.
“It’s a place of excellence and it’s an investment in excellence.
“And it’s a place of partnerships and it’s an investment in partnerships.
“Firstly, to safety.
“It is not just about a place where we keep the community safe by holding those people who harm our community, but it is a place of safety for our staff members, the members of the Queensland police who keep those people who are in custody safe and the broader community safe, but it is also a place where people can access the services that they need.
“There is the prosecution service here, which invests in safety.
“There is an opportunity to have Queensland Health partnering here, which is an investment in safety.
“There is also partnerships with Youth Justice and other agencies, which is about delivering on safety for our community.
“So, this is an investment in safety, as well as an investment in detention.
“It’s also an investment in excellence,” Mr Ryan continued.
“Excellence, because this is state-of-the-art.
“I think that this is probably the most technologically advanced watch house in the nation.
“It’s got the latest thinking around technology, but also the latest around thinking about detention and how you facilitate partnerships.
“Having clinical space here for Queensland Health to partner with the Queensland Police Service around providing care and assistance to those who may need it is an investment in excellence.
“It’s also investing in the people who work here.
“Those people who are highly trained and skilled, those people who are proud members of the Queensland Police Service and who deliver the services on behalf of the people of Queensland.
“So, it’s an investment in excellence.
“But finally, and I think this is probably the most important part, it’s an investment in partnerships.
“Not only a very public investment in partnership through the artwork we see out the front, a partnership with the First Nations people, but a partnership with other government agencies like Youth Justice, because our co-responder team will be based here.
“Our partnership with Department of Justice and attorney general because our prosecutors are here.
“Our partnership with Queensland Health because of that clinical space I spoke about.
“Our partnership with the community because we’re all in the business of community safety together.
“So, this is more than just a place of detention.
“It is so much more than that and it will deliver on so much more than just detention for our community.
“Rightly so, there are many people who are very proud of this project.
“It will contribute in many ways to the safety of our community.”