The ‘thin blue line’ has been so stretched it’s only a matter of time before it snaps, the Police Association has warned as statistics reveal Melton’s crime rate increased by more than 20 per cent in one year.
Aggravated burglaries in the Melton Police Service Area, which includes Caroline Springs, increased by more than 40 per cent to 91 in the past financial year, according to recent Crime Statistics Agency data.
The 13 per cent increase in Victoria’s crime rate prompted the opposition to label it a “crime tsunami”, and the police union dub it a “community safety crisis”.
In the past financial year, property damage offences in Melton rose by 20 per cent, burglaries and thefts by 16 per cent, and weapons and explosive devices offences by more than 25 per cent. At the same time, domestic violence incidents jumped by 8.7 per cent.
Meanwhile, overall crime in Moorabool increased by 15 per cent, to 2300 incidents.
Police Association assistant secretary Bruce McKenzie said the large spike in crime was further evidence that Victoria was in “desperate” need of more frontline police.
He said Victoria Police’s focus on specialised taskforces was failing, and unless the government and senior command “stopped burying its collective head in the sand and urgently increased frontline police”, it would only get worse.
“If they continue to do nothing, then we can only expect law-abiding citizens in our state will continue to be condemned to the same outcome, if not worse,” Mr McKenzie said. “Something’s got to give and it must happen urgently.”
Deputy Commissioner Andrew Crisp said while there had been an increase in aggravated burglaries across the state, less than two per cent involved violent confrontations.
While he said he understood the community’s fear, Mr Crisp said Victoria Police had ramped up their responses and arrested more than 185 people as the work of specialised taskforces.
“Our members are working hard, they’ve never worked harder,” Mr Crisp said.
But Mr McKenzie slammed Victoria Police’s “broken resourcing model”, which focused on identifying crime trends once the trend occurred in lieu of prevention. “We’ve heard far too much spin about special taskforces,” Mr McKenzie said. “The crime stats emphatically show they’re not working.
“The reality is they rob police stations of their ability to prevent crime by providing a proper visible policing presence which not only the community craves, but is actually proven to work in preventing crime.”
Premier Daniel Andrews told a press conference the increased crime rates were a “very challenging set of … statistics”.
“They are right across the community and have a profound effect on people in every part of our state.”
Opposition policing spokesman Edward O’Donohue said the “whole justice system, from A to Z”, was broken.
