Police officers had to be good listeners and “priest like” – as well as being disciplined, Home Affairs Minister Michael Farrugia said today, urging a group of new recruits to offer civilians a shoulder to lean on.

“You will meet many people who have been through hardships, who have their own reality and perhaps just need to share their troubles. You will have to be disciplined but also human,” he said.

The family doctor was addressing a group of 97 new police recruits at the Ta’ Kandja Police Training Academy. He said that while they were not social workers, their future work as law enforces would share certain similarities with social work.

“You will have to, at times, be like priests, who listen to the troubles of others,” he said.

You will have to, at times, be like priests, who listen to the troubles of others

The new recruits started their training last month and will spend the next three months at the academy in the outskirts of Siġġiewi before taking their oath of service.

“Let us hope that of the 97 recruits here today, we will have 97 with us in December,” Police Commissioner Lawrence Cutajar said.

Reminiscing over his own recruitment some 40 years ago, Mr Cutajar said his commanding officer had assigned him to guard a bridge for several weeks back in the mid-1970s.

“That was my recruitment. But when I look around this modern training facility, I can’t help but feel a sense of progress,” he said.

The progress Dr Farrugia had in mind was a modernisation of the police force – with professionals from the private sector head hunted to bolster ailing investigative units.

What the police force needs, he told the Times of Malta, was new blood and specialised resources to help keep up with the challenges of modern law enforcement.