By Mikayla van Loon
Crime rates across the Yarra Ranges police service area are “stable” but impacts of youth crime, family violence and road trauma still flow into the community.
At a Victoria Police CommSafe forum on Wednesday 9 August some of the state’s highest ranking officers, as well as those from Eastern Division, gave an overview of crime in the region.
Deputy Commissioner Neil Paterson said these CommSafe forums will happen right across the state and are part of the neighbourhood policing initiative brought in by Chief Commissioner Shane Patton.
“This is absolutely key for Shane as Chief Commissioner, I maintain myself as one of the deputy commissioners in Victoria Police, our commitment to neighbourhood policing,” he said.
“Our commitment to listening to the community and not delivering the police service we think you need but the police service that you tell us you want and that we can deliver to you.”
Superintendent and Investigation Response Manager for Eastern Division Mick Martin said despite there being, in recent times, “problems with gang activity”, thefts and “internet type deceptions”, the crime investigation unit (CIU) has driven down this kind of activity.
The figures show that crime in the Yarra Ranges is sitting at 2.1 per cent for the 12 months from March 2022 to March 2023.
“When you compare that to the division, ED2, it’s sitting at 6.8 per cent and you compare that to the average in the eastern region where it sits at 12.2 per cent and the state is 10.7 per cent,” Detective Senior Sergeant Stephan Sheahan said.
“So you look at our figure of 2.1 stable, you think well that’s comfortable, but it’s never comfortable. It’s always trending up and down.”
Although seeing decreases in thefts from motor vehicles and other motor vehicle related thefts, Dect Senior Sgt Sheahan said 40 per cent of vehicle thefts involve unlocked cars.
Perhaps more concerning was the criminal damage occurring at the hand of young people, noted to be mostly present in areas near train station precincts like Upwey and Mooroolbark.
Criminal damage includes things like graffiti and property damage.
Commander Karen Nyholm said the definition of youth within Victoria Police is someone aged between 10 and 24 years old.
While youth offending has also seen a decline in the last 12 months, Commander Nyholm said what is concerning is the rate and seriousness of their crimes.
“The unfortunate thing is those youth that are offending are offending more seriously and escalating to a rapid and serious amount of crimes in a short space of time,” she said.
“So rather than edging their way into it, sometimes they’re going to the serious crime straight off.”
Aggravated burglaries is one of these more serious crimes that police are seeing both locally and state-wide being committed by young people.
“Predominantly we’re seeing youth steal car keys and take cars for joy rides, which in itself brings further risk of damage to the community,” Commander Nyholm said.
For people on the ground, particularly the wellbeing coordinators at high schools, questions were raised about the effect of drugs on young people and the increase in addiction to vapes.
One wellbeing coordinator raised concerns about the increase they are experiencing in parents using drugs and alcohol which is in turn having a negative impact on the children.
DC Paterson said preventing youth crime begins with proactive interventions and engaging them in the right supports early on.
“We know the longer you can keep a young person out of the formal criminal justice system, the greater the likelihood they won’t remain in the criminal justice system,” he said.
“If we’re fronting younger kids to court in the formal criminal justice system, the stats tell us they will likely remain encaged in the formal criminal justice system, their trajectory to offending will remain.”
Yarra Ranges Proactive Policing Unit Acting Senior Sergeant Karen Barns said with over 50 programs run in schools already this year, working towards that diversion of crime is a top priority.
A question asked by a community member addressed the seeming lack of visual representation of police on the streets as a deterrent to crime.
DC Paterson said with around 800 vacancies across the police force needing to be filled and around 800 officers out on WorkCover mostly for mental health injuries, police presence isn’t as full as they would like it.
Family violence continues to be a key concern for the Yarra Ranges, with detectives from the Family Violence Unit dealing around 10 per cent of incidents reported in the state.
Detective Senior Sergeant Shaun Allen said the number of intervention orders has risen but from his perspective that means more people are reporting violence in the home, meaning more people are potentially safe from that violence.
Around 400 family violence incidents are reported to police each month in the Yarra Ranges.
The interlaced effect of family violence is the normalisation of this offending when children grow up in a household where violence has occurred.
“We’re now looking to make sure the referrals and support is put in place for those children so they don’t feel disconnected from a family home, so they don’t join gangs, so they don’t go out and break into houses looking for cars. We’re looking at a much broader picture,” Dect Senior Sgt Allen said.
Hearing from the audience, it became clear that local family violence support services are seeing an uptake in young boys and men attacking their mothers in the home.
So too is an increase in elder abuse where children usually take financial advantage of their elderly parents.
Another subject of major concern was the road death toll with an increase in distracted and dangerous driving, as well as aggression.
Superintendent of Road Policing David Griffin said with 177 lives lost on Victorian roads, up 35 on last year, as at Wednesday, he was sure 99 per cent would have been preventable.
Eastern Division Two Highway Patrol Acting Senior Sergeant Andrew Sands said the unit is seeing a spate of hooning in the Dandenong Ranges on Friday and Saturday nights, as well as speeding across the three major arterial roads of Melba, Maroondah and Warburton Highways.
From the forum, DC Paterson said the main takeaways for police were related to connecting the right programs in the right areas so schools have access to support in more remote towns, as well as looking into the benefits of police engaging young people in clubs and sport.
