Victoria Police chief commissioner Mike Bush has unveiled a comprehensive package of reforms directed to have tens of thousands of police hours diverted to the frontline each year to help reduce crime.
“The levels of offending we are seeing in our community are entirely unacceptable," he said on Monday, when announcing a proposed restructure of the organisation to free up police for more time on the streets to stop offending before it happens.
“Good people, innocent people going about their everyday lives, are being victimised, on the streets and in their own homes....this cannot continue,” commissioner Bush said.
The proposals are also said to represent the most significant structural changes in years and lay the foundations for transformation in how Victoria Police operates with a total focus on reducing crime and improving the safety of all Victorians.
Commissioner Bush emphasised that getting ahead of this crime prevention requires consequences for those offenders who drive fear in our communities combined with ongoing swift arrests and proactive operations, noting it will also require a fundamental shift in how Victoria Police operates.
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“We need to change how we police, so that we can get ahead of the criminals and stop the offending before it happens,” he said.
The heart of the new proposed structure is a slimmed-down executive team, the backline of Victoria Police, that will enable a reinvestment in the frontline.
There will also be a reduction in the number of centralised commands and departments and an elevated focus on crime prevention and partnerships.
While these proposed changes are the first step, a second phase of the review will commence next year and is set to propose further, deep and tangible changes to the ways in which Victoria Police operate, with a focus on five critical themes; Leadership, Bureaucracy, Technology, Organisational Design, and Recruitment, Retention and Return.
Commissioner Bush said “prevention and deterrence” are the hallmarks of their strategy moving forward to drive down the crime rate.
“Victoria Police is an exceptional organisation," he said.
"We have almost 22,000 police, PSOs and VPS staff who turn up every day to keep the Victorian public safe.
"But it is clear to me that we have not been giving our frontline members the support they need.
“While specialist services within Victoria Police have benefitted from considerable investment – and necessarily so – our general duties officers, the backbone of our organisation, have not received the same levels of focus or investment."
Commissioner Bush said if they are to prevent crime, it starts with properly resourcing and enabling frontline police officers.
“Right now, police spend more than 4000 hours per day – or 1.4 million hours per year - staffing reception counters in police stations...this is poor use of their invaluable skills and it’s not what they want to be doing," he said.
“We must get more police – your police – out of their stations and onto the streets where they can respond to and deter crimes.”
Other initiatives announced included a new State Crime Coordination Centre, a trial to release sworn officers from police station reception counter duties and an initiative to see dedicated teams of admin staff including former police officers, established within police stations to free members up from their paperwork after making an arrest.
“The structural changes we are making, and the new initiatives I have detailed, are a significant departure from how Victoria Police has gone about its business in recent years," he said.
“We are doing this because it is clear – we can’t keep doing things the same way and expecting different results.”
