Are you a night owl with a hankering to work with drunken and arrested types?
If so, then the Wanaka police might have just the opportunity you're looking for.
The nine-man police station needs a casual jailer to bolster personnel as any upsurge in late-night arrests stretches their existing resources to the limits.
Acting Sergeant Emma Fleming said they had advertised for the ‘‘on-call'' part-time position for someone to work alongside the station's existing casual jailer and help free-up on-duty police.
The main duties of the nonsworn position include processing arrested offenders, monitoring offenders if they are held in the cells, and transporting offenders to court - which could be anywhere from Queenstown, to Dunedin, or Invercargill, Sgt Fleming said.
The frequency of work varied, but would be increasingly more given the winter season was approaching which meant a seasonal spike in late-night drunken offending and arrests.
‘‘If our jailer is in the process of transporting someone, or is unavailable, usually we have to get someone in from outside the area to monitor prisoners. This can take up to an hour for them to travel from either Alexandra or Queenstown, and stretches our resources, as staff are tied up looking after prisoners,'' Sgt Fleming said.
Having an extra on-call jailer meant police officers could resume their patrol and ‘‘do the work they need to do'', she said
The job of a casual jailer is a common one in police stations across New Zealand and any station without a 24-hour manned watch-house used on call, part-time, non-sworn police employees to do the job Sgt Fleming said.
A dozen information packs about the job had been given out to interested people, she said.
