Complaints against southern police were upheld 107 times in the five-year period between 2002 and 2007, with one complaint leading to an officer being prosecuted for an off-duty assault.
Included in the 944 complaints were two alleging that officers caused death, two alleging racial harassment three alleging perjury and 61 internal complaints.
There are about 35 categories of complaint.
However, a new code of conduct, which came into force in February, is already tightening up the response to inappropri ate behaviour, southern police district operations manager Inspector Lane Todd said.
‘‘This is a huge leap forward into the 21st century for the police force. Officers are treated more like the employees of a private company,'' he said.
Insp Todd said officers would now be dealt with on three levels, either with more training on the performance manage ment level, through the code of conduct, or through the criminal courts.
Serious issues would be forwarded to Police National Headquarters.
The complaints, obtained by the Otago Daily Times in an Official Information Act request, rose from 138 in 2002-03 to 247 in 2006-07.
This reflected the nature of the complaints as being mostly minor and relating to the perceived attitude and language of officers, he said.
Insp Todd said he encouraged the public to complain, as it was a litmus test for police and meant they were able to see how the community thought they were performing.
All complaints dealt with by police were handed to the Inde pendent Police Conduct Authority, formerly the Police Complaints Authority. Their figures for the same time five year period showed that of the 926 complaints received by the authority 25 were sustained.
Police Complaints Authority practice manager Gary Bulog said the authority could not reveal what actions were taken as a result of investigations.
