By: CECÍLIA PIRES
A NEW police station, which was officially opened on Monday at Faro Airport, is“an important investment for the tourism development in the region”, said the Minister for Internal Administration, Rui Pereira.
At the opening ceremony, the minister said Portugal has problems with crime just like other countries “but we are doing what we can to give police forces the best conditions for them to do their job”.
This year, he said, police numbers have been swelled by the admission of 1,000 new agents for training in the PSP and another 1,000 for the GNR police. “This number is more than sufficient for the country’s needs at the moment,” he said.
Commenting on the Algarve’s Safe Summer operation, he said that
 The Minister for Internal Administration, Rui Pereira |
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police agents placed in the region for the season have “the necessary resources” to do a good job.
This year, according to the minister, 381 more men and women were allocated to the Algarve compared with 2007.
“Of the 609 agents that we send here, 419 were placed with the GNR, 104 in the PSP and 86 in the maritime police,” he said.
Despite the minister’s optimism, some of the police agents who talked to The Resident at the new office said that although the region has enough agents, they still lack more and better resources. “However, this new police station is a very positive step as it raises public safety perception,” said one agent. He added: “it is disappointing though that the new division for the Corpo de Intervenção will have to wait for God knows how long.” The Corpo de Intervenção of the PSP is the equivalent division to the British Riot Police.
Police distribution
“The Algarve region faces a problem of police distribution,” said another agent. “The western Algarve is more crowded at this time of year than the eastern Algarve and it would make more sense to send a larger number of police agents to that side of the region instead of distributing them equally. But then, there would probably be a political issue with that,” he said.
After 42 years in a provisional location inside the airport premises, the new facilities of the PSP will be open 24 hours a day, with agents working four shifts of six hours to assist safety related situations in the airport.
The command will have 83 agents on a permanent basis, aided by eight vehicles, including cars and motorbikes. The building is equipped with four detention cells, several offices, police staff bedrooms for night shifts, training and meeting rooms as well as a kitchen and refectory.
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