This influenced the creation of a new police board, appointing John Avery as the New South Wales Police Commissioner in 1984 (Chan, 2006). Avery's mission for the New South Wales Police Force was to rid it of internal corruption and create a new police culture to better serve the community, the main aim of police work (Reynolds, 1996). Many of the changes introduced included a complete reorganization of the command structure, the implementation of new recruitment criteria and new training programs (Reynolds, 1996). Avery realized that the police were failing to reduce crime and there was fear within the community, so radical changes within traditional policing needed to take place (Reynolds, 1996). Avery influenced the core operational strategy for police reform in New South Wales, focusing on "community policing", and the notion of "force" was replaced by that of "service" (Reynolds , 1996). Due to the popular and positive results, many other Australasian police agencies have followed John Avery's lead and introduced community policing since the start of the radical restructuring of the New South Wales Police Force in 1987 (Etter & Palmer,