Our role and functions

The role of Victoria Police is to serve the Victorian community and uphold the law to promote a safe, secure, and orderly society.

We achieve this through our functions of:

• protecting life and property
• helping those in need of assistance
• preventing offences
• preserving the peace
• detecting and apprehending offenders.

Our role and functions are set out in the Victoria Police Act 2013.

Our services

Our services include:

• responding to calls for assistance in matters of personal and public safety, emergencies, and serious incidents
• preventing crime through a range of proactive community safety programs
• detecting and investigating offences, and bringing justice to those responsible for committing them
• supporting the judicial process to achieve efficient and effective court case management, supporting victims, providing safe custody for alleged offenders, and ensuring fair and equitable treatment of victims and offenders
• promoting safe road user behaviour.

Our values

Our values underpin our policies, procedures, and practices and how our employees interact with the community and each other.

Our values are:

Visit our values for more information.

Our people

Victoria Police employs more than 22,312 people.

We continue to build a workforce that reflects the diversity of the community we serve and provide a safe and equal workplace where our people are treated with dignity, respect, and fairness.

Our workforce is made up of:

Victoria Police service coverage

Victoria Police provides policing services to the community 24 hours a day, seven days a week, working to keep more than 6.8 million Victorians safe.

Victoria Police operates across 53 police service areas, within 21 divisions and four regions.

Our assets

Victoria Police develops and maintains high-performing assets to support our service delivery.

Our assets and infrastructure include:

Our issues and opportunities

We operate in a constantly changing environment. We are actively considering factors that may influence our future policies, and issues we are responding to, including:

• extreme weather events and climate change
• rapid advancements in technology facilitated offending, including rising prevalence of fraud and scams and use of social media by children and youth to promote and facilitate crime
• community perceptions of safety
• the prevalence of deteriorating mental health within the broader community
• increasing harm on our roads.

We are continuing to work with our partner agencies and communities to:

• address issues like increasing child, youth and recidivist offending, family violence and serious crime
• evaluate our implementation of reforms like the decriminalisation of public drunkenness, and
• manage demand for police services across the state, particularly in country Victoria.

Our risks

We manage risk in accordance with the Victorian Government Risk Management Framework.

Our risk management approach supports evidence-based continuous modernisation, and ensures we are complying with our safety, legal, governance, and other corporate obligations.

We operate under the requirements of the Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities Act 2006 supported by our values and policies.

Our performance

We are continually monitoring our organisational performance. We report to government on our accountabilities including against the Victorian Government Budget Papers, and through a detailed annual report and internal governance mechanisms.

Our progress towards specific targets and initiatives is monitored by, but not limited to, the:

• Implementation Monitor for Royal Commission into the Management of Police Informants
• Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission
• Minister for Police
• Public Sector Gender Equality Commissioner
• Victims of Crime Commissioner
• Victorian Secretaries Board.

Our finances

Victoria Police received $4.51 billion from the Victorian Government to fund our 2024–25 budget.

We are expending this budget to reduce the overall incidence and fear of crime by delivering initiatives that improve safety in the Victorian community. This includes initiatives in the areas of law enforcement, court proceedings and community assistance.

Cost increases in all expense categories demand prudent financial management and identification of efficiencies to ensure Victoria Police operates within its budget allocation.

Approved Budget and Finance Committee (State Budget) funded output and asset investment programs and targets over the next four financial years are published in the 2024–25 State Budget Papers No. 3 and No. 4.

Keeping You Safe outlines our vision for a safer community in which:

• everyone is safe and feels safe
• those affected by crime feel supported
• those who break the law are held to account, and
• police work with the community and our partners to prevent crime, reduce harm and build a better, safer Victoria.

We are realising our vision through a suite of initiatives and projects under three focus areas:

Spotlights

Continue to deliver consistent high-quality police responses to family violence, sexual offences and child abuse

We are implementing the next Family Violence, Sexual Offences and Child Abuse Strategy 2024–2029, replacing the previous strategy Policing Harm, Upholding the Right 2018–2023.

The new strategy will carry forward our previous reform work. It aims to consistently deliver high-quality police responses to family violence, sexual offences and child abuse, within a sector-wide approach, to enhance community safety.

This strategy also introduces an outcomes approach through our newly developed outcomes framework for family violence, sexual offences, and child abuse. The approach will measure success by focusing on quality outcomes rather than demand-based or output-focused performance measures.

Respond to child and youth offending and ensure that children and young people at risk have access to the support they need

Renewing our focus on connections with the community and partner agencies to respond to child and youth offending ensures that children and young people at risk have access to the support they need.

We are collaborating with our partner agencies to implement government-led reforms on critical issues, such as:

• youth justice
• bail
• major crime, and
• raising of the minimum age of criminal responsibility.

The Embedded Youth Outreach Program (EYOP) is being expanded to more locations to engage more children and young people. EYOP pairs police with specialist youth workers to provide a therapeutic response to young people encountering police and to identify opportunities for early intervention.

We are recruiting and deploying Youth Crime Coordinators, through the Youth Crime Prevention and Early Intervention Project (YCPEIP), to identify at-risk children and young people and intervene early to interrupt the offending pathway. The goal of YCPEIP is to reduce rates of re-offending among young people by diverting eligible young offenders away from the criminal justice system, minimising their contact with police and the courts.

We are launching the Child Victim and Offender Strategy 2024–2029, outlining our response to prevent and respond to harm to children and by children. The strategy complements the Victoria Police Youth Gang Strategy 2023–2026 and aligns with the principles of Keeping You Safe.

Improve the way we interact and work with Aboriginal people

Keeping You Safe reinforces Victoria Police’s strategic direction of working with the Aboriginal community in the spirit of self-determination to reduce over-representation of Aboriginal people in the criminal justice system.

We are contributing to the state’s Treaty preparedness as required by Department of Premier and Cabinet.

In May 2023, the Yoorrook Justice Commissioners presented a Shield to the Chief Commissioner of Police as a symbol of the Commission’s expectation of change by Victoria Police in the way we engage with and police Aboriginal people. In May 2024 we unveiled the Shield in the foyer of the Victoria Police Centre and published the Chief Commissioner’s Statement of Commitment to give effect to his undertaking to the Commission in response to this expectation.

The Statement of Commitment sets out 79 actions across three broad themes to bring about transformational change:

• monitoring and accountability
• cultural competence and human rights capability
• human rights and cultural rights compliance.

Also in May 2024, the Chief Commissioner of Police apologised for Victoria Police’s role in the removal of Aboriginal children of the Stolen Generations from their families and communities. This apology reflects our organisation’s commitment to a genuine truth-telling process.

We continue to engage with and respond to the Yoorrook Justice Commission to support a program of work aligned to the objectives of the truth-telling process. The Yoorrook Justice Commission’s accountability-themed hearings are planned to commence in late 2024 where Victoria Police is likely to be called to discuss progress on the commitments made in May 2023.

Deliver exceptional services when and where they are needed

We know the public expects a visible police presence and consistent and high-quality police services.

To meet the community’s expectations, we are continuing to transform our service delivery and operating model.

A review into the way we prioritise problems, plan effective responses, allocate tasks and coordinate resources is underway.

We are implementing a modern rostering system to assist us in deploying our people with the equipment they need to where it matters most.

This focus ensures Victoria Police is responding effectively to demands for our services and that we are having the greatest impact possible on community safety.

Streamline our processes to improve every interaction

We are working to be more mobile, accessible, responsive, and visible across the state. To enable this we are transforming our digital capability and streamlining our processes to free our people from administrative burden.

We continue to automate our document management systems and we will begin issuing electronic on-the-spot penalty infringement notices.

We are committed to protecting the information we host. Our Cyber Security Strategy 2023–2025 provides the roadmap to uplift our cyber capabilities so we can respond to increasing volumes and complexity of security events. Our improved capability will allow our people to provide ongoing, focused responses to evolving issues.

The first phase of implementation of the Laboratory Information Management System is being finalised, giving our people more time for performing forensic work and providing greater transparency of what we do, why we do it, and what it takes to deliver forensic services effectively.

We are improving responses to reports of stalking and family violence to prevent severe harm.

New technology to enhance financial functions will improve our financial sustainability efforts ensuring a well-resourced police force, with a strong commitment to community engagement. Our financial sustainability strategy supports Victoria Police to remain in a long term financially sustainable position by driving productivity benefits and operating efficiencies.

Disrupt crime, with a focus on emerging and technology-enabled crime

Our community expects us to be ahead of the threats that cause the greatest harm.

We know our investigations and forensic capabilities must continue to evolve to identify and disrupt existing and emerging crime, including technology-enabled crime at every level.

Work with strategic partners and the community continues to enable better responses to existing and emerging cybercrime threats facing Victorians.

Our focus is to keep communities, institutions and individuals safe from the significant harm caused by serious and organised criminals. We continue to create a hostile environment for these groups, dismantle their networks and bring them to justice through a coordinated, connected and capable approach to our work.

Crime Reduction Teams have been established to target recidivist offenders involved in serious and violent crime. We are prioritising offending that creates fear and impacts the day-to-day life of Victorians.

We continue to reduce firearms-related violence by seizing firearms, firearm parts and ammunition through the use of Firearms Prohibition Orders.

Our unwavering commitment to reduce the devastating impact of drugs in the Victorian community remains. Through critical partnerships, we are delivering solutions to prevent and address drug-related crime, support change, and connect people to treatment and support when they need it.

We continue to focus on preventing harm caused by youth gangs. These are complex problems with many facets. Working side-by-side with the community and our partners, we are using evidence-based approaches to prevent harm and disrupt and prosecute offenders and support meaningful change.

Build, train and equip our workforce

A diverse, highly trained and well-equipped workforce will allow us to adapt quickly to changing community needs and respond to emerging and new crime types.

Over the next four years, we will continue to roll out conducted energy devices to all frontline police and protective services officers (PSOs) to better protect themselves and the community.

We are targeting road users impaired by alcohol with an increased number of preliminary breath testing devices with enhanced functionality. Using evidence-based methodologies and enhanced automated number plate recognition technology, we are improving our ability to identify and manage recidivist high-risk drivers.

Modernising police facilities, including building new police stations and upgrading existing ones, will ensure our people can perform their work in safer environments.

Strengthen our culture through collaboration, innovation, and sound judgement

The Victorian community places significant responsibility and trust in Victoria Police and rightfully expects all employees to act with the highest levels of integrity and impartiality.

We continue to transform our complaints and discipline system and are revising our values, Code of Conduct and conflict of interest policies. The revised system and policies are strengthening accountability and delivering a more transparent, timely, and victim-centric process to increase community confidence.

To drive positive change at all levels we are embedding our CultureWorks program into all training, building a culture of connection and collaboration, sound judgement and innovation.

Embedding Aboriginal Cultural Awareness Training is a fundamental action in the Chief Commissioner’s Statement of Commitment. The training has been embedded in the Foundation Training Program at the Victoria Police Academy and the Chief Commissioner has committed to all police, PSOs, and police custody officers (PCOs) completing the training. Following this, we will expand the training to include Victorian Public Service employees and develop refresher training.

Ensure our people are safe and well supported

The health, safety and wellbeing of our people is paramount.

We are establishing two health, safety and wellbeing hubs to support, engage, and encourage our people to be their best and focus on what matters to their colleagues and the community. The hubs will provide preventative and proactive support, focusing on maintaining the health of our people, responding to avoidable harm, and providing quality, integrated and tailored responses to support injured employees back to health. An evaluation of the initial hubs will follow to inform a potential further four hubs being established.

Building a workforce that reflects the diversity of the community we serve is key. Our employee networks provide executive-sponsored forums for discussion, support and advice, including giving Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander employees a culturally safe environment for sharing ideas and advice.

Equipping every employee with the knowledge and skills to take the responsibility and actions needed to create a workplace that is safe, respectful and inclusive of all our people is a priority.

Connect with partners to respond to local issues

Community engagement is central to how Victoria Police serves its local communities and creates lasting partnerships that increase public trust and confidence in police.

By committing resources to collaborative responses, we are building on successful programs developed in partnership with the Aboriginal community. For example, we are developing refreshed Aboriginal Cultural Awareness Training and expanding the Aboriginal Youth Cautioning Program to increase capacity and uptake by children and young people. Introduced in 2019, the program draws upon local Aboriginal culture, knowledge, and an enhanced police cautioning approach to divert Aboriginal children and young people from further contact with the justice system. Five dedicated Aboriginal Cautioning Support Officers will be employed to oversee the daily operation of the program and support its state-wide expansion.

Our new strategy to respond to child and youth offending aligns us with the strategic direction of key government partners.

We recognise that being better prepared for climate change will benefit community safety and better equip police services. Over the next four years, we will embark on implementing a climate change strategy to better prepare and respond to the changing nature of emergencies, and to manage assets with a lower carbon footprint.

Collaborate with partners to enhance crime prevention and reduce harm

Victoria Police works with partners to respond to and implement government-led reforms on priorities such as youth justice, bail, major crime and the minimum age of criminal responsibility. We are working with Corrections Victoria to respond to child offenders who are under an electronic monitoring court order and have breached their conditions of bail. By supporting custody management operations and therapeutic justice approaches, such as Drug Court programs, we work towards enhanced rehabilitation and addressing the underlying causes of crime.

Our strong partnerships with children and youth service providers and other agencies are supporting Victoria’s critical youth justice reforms. To ensure that matters involving children can be dealt with quickly and fairly, we work in partnership with the Children’s Court of Victoria to provide an after-hours remand court. Our work with youth workers delivering joint after-hours outreach programs will be expanded to more locations aimed to reduce child and youth offending. Additional support will be deployed through Youth Crime Coordinators and the Youth Crime Prevention and Early Intervention Project, to increase early intervention measures such as referrals to legal and social supports.

Road trauma has a significant impact on communities. To achieve the government objective of zero deaths and serious injuries on Victorian roads, we are working with the community and road safety partners to promote safe behaviour and road rule compliance. Our active and visible presence through general and specific deterrence, guided by our Victoria Police Road Safety Strategy 2024–28 will continue to address behaviours that contribute to road trauma.

Recommendations from the 2021 Review of the Private Security Industry informs our work with key stakeholders to introduce the single security licensing scheme and develop the Private Security Industry Code of Conduct recently enshrined in the Private Security Act 2024.

Reducing the harm caused by family violence, sexual offending and child abuse remains our focus and will continue to drive our work with sector partners through the implementation of the Victoria Police Family Violence, Sexual Offences and Child Abuse Strategy 2024–2029.

Invest in and grow strategic partnerships

Strong and sustainable partnerships help us deliver better equipment, technology and infrastructure for our people and better services to our local communities.

Through collaboration with more than 500 partners across community, government and non-government organisations, private sector and academia, we continue to co-design and co-deliver services that prevent and reduce crime and keep Victorians safe.

As a member of the Dhelk Dja Partnership Forum we are supporting the fulfillment of the Police and Aboriginal Communities’ Protocols Against Family Violence to deliver localised Aboriginal-led initiatives and actions.

A new artificial intelligence (AI) framework will enable us to explore the risks and opportunities presented by emerging AI technologies and applications.

We also continue to support the implementation of a national firearms register.

Our stakeholders include:

Victoria Police received funding through the 2024–25 Victorian State Budget for initiatives published in the 2024–25 State Budget Paper No. 3.

^{1 Justice system costs associated with court programs are Court Services Victoria led initiatives. The total output funding allocated to Victoria Police from 2024–25 to 2027–28 is $28.9 million, with an ongoing funding of $7.8 million.}

^{2 Continuing to support a safe and stable Youth Justice system is a DJCS led initiative. The total output funding allocated to Victoria Police from 2024–25 to 2027–28 is $1.0 million, with an ongoing funding of $0.3 million.}

Approved Budget and Financial sub-Committee funded asset investment programs and targets over the next four financial years are published in the 2024–25 State Budget Paper No. 4.