Probationary Constable Mitchell Penn had his first day on the job on October 13, and said he was keen to find his place in both Griffith and the police force.

He explained, "I'm excited about it. Before, I was at uni studying engineering but I dropped out cause it wasn't for me ... During that, I was working for my dad doing things like medical and crash rescue. I did some of the logistics, sending gear in and went to some police rescues."

"That influenced me a bit, everyone seemed to be a good community working together."

He explained that part of the reason he left engineering was that it was a lot of working by himself, and that he preferred to work as a team overcoming challenges.

"I'm mainly looking forward to just building a group of friends, a strong team. Get that feeling of overcoming a challenge as a team."

He added that he was excited to get involved with the opportunities Griffith has- he was keen to start a small veggie patch and looking at getting involved with the PCYC.

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Chief Inspector John Wadsworth said that he was pleased to be getting passionate recruits.

"It keeps our capacity up, we're nearly overbrimming with police," he said.

"Our probationary team has been exceptional, they've really gotten involved with the community and committed ... If you look at five years ago, we had a lot of fly-in, fly-out police who couldn't wait to go back."

"When you have police who make an effort to fit in, we find less and less are leaving at the end of their tenure."

Constable Penn said that he didn't yet know what he wanted to do or how he wanted to progress after his probationary period was up, but would be keeping his ear to the ground.

"Maybe dog squad, maybe police rescue. I'll just keep an ear out and listen to what other people say."

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