Source: Courier Mail (Australia) Contact: Mon, 28 Sep 1998 TOP COP WARNS OF FALLING NUMBERS AUSTRALIA'S top cop has questioned the capacity of his depleted force to combat violence, drugs and organised crime. Australian Federal Police Commissioner Mick Palmer said his force had only been able to recruit 25 to 30 new officers a year for several years. "In the four-and-a-half-years of my commissionership, the strength of the AFP has fallen by some 400, a fact which I deeply regret," Mr Palmer said. He said the increase in home invasions, drug and alcohol abuse and the growing use of dangerous weapons such as knives presented significant problems for governments and police. Problems within the AFP are not confined to violent crime and just three weeks ago the force's entire computer crime team resigned to join the private sector. The Opposition has accused the Government of cutting $100 million from the AFP budget in three years. Mr Palmer told AFP graduates the force would be operating in a more uncertain global environment with an explosion of organised crime in Asia and Russia. "In one critically important Asian country, banks are reputed to have accumulated unredeemable loans amounting to more that $US1 trillion, of which, according to reports, some 40 percent was loans to groups or corporations with organised criminal connections," he said. In Russia, according to Mr Palmer, 30 percent of organised crime income was spent on bribing government officials. AFP Association spokesman Jason Burns welcomed the Commissioner's comments. Mr Burns said serious crime was not being investigated because of a lack of resources. "We have no resources to investigate what is referred to us," Mr Burns said. The Commissioner's sobering assessment comes as the Government still refuses to release a damaging report into the AFP. It is understood the report by former senior bureaucrat Tony Ayers points to under funding and poor management within the force. - --- Checked-by: Mike Gogulski