A controversial Victoria Police plan to move frontline police into dedicated taskforces has received a mixed reaction.
Victoria Police is working on a Blue Paper that will determine the best way to police in the future based on population growth, societal changes and crime statistics.
In a statement released last week, Chief Commissioner Ken Lay said it was time for Victoria Police to modernise its practices after running under the same model for 161 years.
He said the state needed a “mobile” police force that could allocate officers according to crime trends, not just population.
“Victoria Police is fundamentally and at every level a community policing organisation,” Mr Lay said.
“But that is not to say a policeforce can stand idly by and ignore the many pressing challenges that cannot be confronted by putting all our resources into police stations and uniformed patrols.
“We need to build greater flexibility into the way we deploy our resources.
“That’s why we are now allocating police numbers at larger geographic ‘divisional’ level so that police commanders have the freedom to move our officers from town to town as and when needed. In addition, we also need more dedicated, specialist taskforces that can help police tackle the greatest drivers of harm.
“Challenges such as organised crime, family violence and the destructive prevalence of ice in the community are not going to be solved through traditional policing alone.”
Police Minister Kim Wells fully backed Mr Lay’s comments, but opposition leader Daniel Andrews has criticised the move.
“Frontline policing is about a visible police presence, deterring crime, fighting crime and keeping communities safe,” Mr Andrews said.
“Hiding people away, or even this other issue of we need forensic accountants and CSI-type lab technicians – they’re not frontline police.
“They’re important, of course, but to be building up specialist teams at the expense of constables on the street, on the beat, in local communities providing a presence, deterrence and doing good old-fashioned community policing, that’s not what was promised by this government and it’s not what communities want.”
Keilor MP Natalie Hutchins said Victoria Police was out of touch with local communities.
“I really feel that it’s unacceptable for Ken Lay or the government to consider cutting police numbers on the beat, particularly in our area where we’ve seen a huge increase in our population,” Ms Hutchins said.
The Police Association did not respond to
Star Weekly’s request for comment by deadline.
