The head of the Victorian police officers’ union says tougher sentences are the only effective way to tackle the state’s record crime rate.

Police Association Victoria secretary Wayne Gatt has welcomed police Chief Commissioner Mike Bush’s plan to restructure the organisation to free up more officers to go back on the streets.

As part of his announcement on Monday afternoon Chief Commissioner Bush said he would streamline the Victoria Police executive team and reduce the “administrative burden” to allow for a more proactive and visible frontline presence.

Mr Gatt said the chief commissioner was “making all the right noises” but the only effective solution was to impose tougher jail sentences.

“What we watch on our TV screens each and every night is out-of-control crime in Victoria that will continue to worsen until we get real, until we toughen up a little bit, until we get strong messages out of our court that are consistent,” he told ABC Radio Melbourne.

Mr Gatt said the courts were not doing enough to deter crime.

“It is a process of mitigating in favour of serious violent offenders,” he said.

“We can free up every single police officer behind every single counter, put them all out on the street and if they bring in every offender in Victoria so we put them through a revolving door in our court, nothing will change.”

Chief Commissioner Bush yesterday said the weekly Israel-Gaza war protests and other rallies in Melbourne’s CBD had soaked up 25,000 police shifts over the past two years and prevented officers from tackling crime.

Mr Gatt said he was in “150 per cent” agreement with that assessment.

He said police were wasting their time managing protests.

“We should be lowering crime, we should be preventing crime, we should be supporting the community when they need us most,” Mr Gatt said.

“Instead, we’re standing out there like milk bottles on the side of the road, keeping warring factions apart from each other.

“We talk about the amount of police we could free up from watch houses.

“Gee whiz, thousands of police in the city every weekend doing this — I know where I’d rather see them.”

‘We need to police differently’

Chief Commissioner Bush’s announcement comes as the state battles a record-breaking crime wave.

He acknowledged the anxiety that was causing in Victoria.

“There are far too many victims of crime,” Chief Commissioner Bush said.

“No-one should live in fear of people breaking into their homes overnight, stealing cars, carjackings, violence in the street, violence at retail outlets, knife crime.”

He unveiled a raft of plans to restore the community’s trust and confidence in police, including the creation of a new 24-hour state crime coordination centre.

Chief Commissioner Bush also proposed a trial that would see sworn officers released from police station reception counter duties.

“We need to police differently,” he said.

“We need a reset. We need to reorganise ourselves.”

Christine Nixon says Mike Bush’s admission that the state has a crime problem is a significant step. (ABC News: Margaret Burin)

Former chief commissioner Christine Nixon agreed more officers were needed on the streets but said that should to be based on intelligence about where their presence was most required.

“They’ve got to be actually knowing where the problems are — being there at the right times and focusing on the particular areas,” she said.

“What you see in policing is, you get repeat offenders, repeat locations and repeat victims, and so what I think this strategy will be doing is focusing on those areas.”

Ms Nixon said Victoria Police had failed to invest in systems to reduce paperwork and make administrative processes more efficient.

She said the illegal tobacco wars were also draining police resources.

Mike Bush has announced a plan to create a coordination centre as police work to restore community confidence. (ABC News)

On Tuesday Deputy Premier Ben Carroll acknowledged the state had more work to do to improve community safety.

He said he believed putting more police back on the beat would address community fears.

“When I’ve talked to my local community, I never hear anyone say they want less police,” Mr Carroll said.

“They all want more police on the streets in their neighbourhoods, in their shopping centres and they want that very visible police presence, so this is a really important move by the chief commissioner.”

Melissa Hardham would like to see police work with community services to address the root causes of crime. (ABC News)

Call for early intervention

Melissa Hardham is the chief executive of Westjustice, a community organisation that provides free legal help for people in Melbourne’s western suburbs.

She said police visibility and deterrents such as sentencing were only two factors in addressing crime.

“We’re far too quick to try and respond in a populistic way,” Ms Hardhan said.

“It’s really important to address the … causes of crime and those kinds of issues in the community.”

Ms Hardham said she hoped Chief Commissioner Bush’s approach would lead to police joining with her organisation to work on youth crime prevention and early intervention initiatives already in place in areas including Wyndham, Melton and Brimbank.

“There’s many programs and services that have been tried and tested that involve police — justice services like ours and also health and wellbeing and housing and employment, education,” she said.

“If we get all those pieces right then we’ll get a much better outcome for the community. And we know, by virtue of that, the community will be safer.”

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