General duties police staff at Dunedin North and Dunedin South stations are tidying up their paper work as they prepare to move out and new proactive policing teams prepare to move in.
The staff are being moved as part of a restructure in Dunedin police, that will put proactive policing on same stage as emergency response and investigation.
Managers say an increased focus on working proactively is already working, with a 10% decrease in crime in Dunedin likely to be recorded this fiscal year, compared to a 1.3% increase the year before.
Area commander Inspector Dave Campbell said general duties staff in North and South Dunedin were still available for the more serious jobs, but until June 13 their other work was being covered by staff based at the Dunedin Central Station.
As part of a restructure of Dunedin police, from June 13 about 30 staff, including general duties staff and Dunedin North and South stations, will be redeployed.
Their new roles will be varied, but some will go to three new proactive policing teams (PPTs), and some to a new, sixth, general-duties section based at Central.
Insp Campbell, said one PPT started last month, a second would start at Dunedin South on June 13, when the sixth section at Central also started and staff at North and South Dunedin were redeployed, and the third team would start on July 4.
The PPT that started a month ago had been involved in drug work, arresting people wanted on warrants and arresting offenders who failed to comply with night-time curfews.
The team had also been carrying out proactive beat work in the central city during lunch times and after school and had been visiting known recidivist offenders.
In one case they found a convicted paedophile lurking in an inner city toy shop in breach of his parole condition.
The team was also tasked with a couple of Dunedin's "current crime problems", on which he could not elaborate.
It would be difficult to show the success of the PPTs in daily activities, because effective crime-solving took considerable time, Insp Campbell said.
To get the best results, the PPTs required a sound tasking and co-ordination process. An improved process implemented last August was already resulting in a significant reduction in crime in Dunedin - provisional figures showed it to be more than 10% for the present fiscal year.
In the meantime, police still had to maintain their emergency response and investigative capabilities, he said.
