The NSW Police Commissioner is warning crime is likely to increase if police powers are softened.

Amidst increasing scrutiny of police activity such as conducting strip searches on young people and using sniffer dogs at music festivals, Police Commissioner Mick Fuller says there will be consequences if young people don’t respect law enforcement.

He tells Ray Hadley knife crime and gang violence are likely to increase, as they have in London and Melbourne after police powers were reduced.

“We don’t have any of those problems here Ray, because we have a strong consequence policing model.

“The reality is I want there to be a small factor of fear so that young people aren’t coming into town with bladed weapons.

“We have such a safe city, we have a safe state, I want to keep it that way.”

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The Commissioner also delivered a strong defence against pill testing, insisting suggestions a recent trial was highly successful are “a myth”.

“I certainly feel very strongly about this and I’ve seen the dark side of what drugs can do to good people.

“These tablets are pressed by village idiots, they’re not pressed by pharmacists.

“So the composition and the percentage of each tablet can be different… which means you could scrape one part of it and it’s safe but there could be 90 per cent MDMA in the other part.

“We don’t know what a safe dose of MDMA is… to say that there is a safe way to test pills, it’s just a lie.”

Image: Getty/William West