The Victorian Police Chief Commissioner Shane Patton introduced a new campaign to ‘strengthen relationships’ between communities and police following authoritarian police actions against activists during the Victorian COVID-19 lockdown and also vaccine mandate protests from 2020 to 2021.
“The global pandemic took up a lot of our focus over the last two years,” Patton said. “It’s time to reset and reconnect with the community.”
“Our new back-to-basics approach is about making sure we’re listening to the community and tackling the issues they care about.”
As part of the currently state-wide Neighbourhood Policing model, authorities will be engaging with the “local community to strengthen relationships, share intelligence and find out what issues people care about most,” with officers tasked to resolve these issues as well as report back to citizens on what’s being done.
Police will likewise be partnering with local councils, community groups and government firms for complicated problems, and also various other efforts such as regional security committees and also forums are being established up so that members can directly engage with the neighborhood police.
The Victorian Police highlighted that their recent initiatives have lowered neighborhood robberies following increased patrols, have stopped illegal beach parties (likely hurting community engagement rather than helping), offenses in retail districts, with cops’ involvement expected to expand around train stations, and also colleges.
A community study has been opened up to the public by the state’s police to record the community’s sentiments around the state’s police as well as just how they desire the police to engage with them.
“Delivering on this commitment not only means we can get on top of issues before they become more serious but make people feel safe to go about their everyday business,” Patton said.
The Victorian Labor Government funded the initiative making “record policing investments” and has supplied an additional 3135 cops across the state.
The news of these efforts comes following records as well as video footage of hefty cops visibility during COVID-19 demonstrations from 2020 to 2021.
According to the Victorian Police, at the height of Victoria’s pandemic action, greater than 1600 authorities, as well as safety solution officers, were associated with COVID-19 tasks, however, numbers have actually now decreased to around 50 as the state comes out of the pandemic.
In 2021 there were reports of riot police being deployed at lockdown demonstrations in Melbourne, along with arrests made on activists.
Online live streamer Rukshan Fernando has previously captured video footage of cops deploying tear gas, rubber pellets and aggressive lockdown tactics upon anti-vaccine mandate and anti-lockdown protestors during Victoria’s lockdowns and also mandates in 2021.
The ALP-funded neighborhood efforts come during election season, with the 2022 federal spending plan released by the Coalition conservative government.
Opposition Leader, Anthony Albanese, presented his 2022 budget reply on March 31, calling upon the Australian prime minister, Scott Morrison, to order elections now.
The Australian Federal Elections are anticipated in mid-May.
H/T The Epoch Times
