Experts weigh in on the downfall of public faith in Victoria Police — and what Mike Bush needs to do to restore it
Ten years ago, Victoria Police was basking in public praise. Today, faith in the force is at a record low. So what went wrong and what does the state’s new top cop need to do to win it back?
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Most people underestimate what they can do in ten years.
But for Victoria Police, it’s hard to see how the past decade could’ve gone any worse for their public image.
Rewind the clock to 2014-15 — the police uniform inspired respect.
Police chief commissioner Ken Lay was announcing his shock resignation from the top job with two years still on his contract in December 2014.
His wife was battling a serious illness, and he wanted to be close to her side as she underwent treatment.
Lay was hailed for his “stabilising influence” and leadership in tackling domestic violence.
He stood down with Victoria on his side: About eight out of every ten residents said they were satisfied with policing services, nine of ten thought police did their jobs professionally and three in four believed cops to be honest.
That is no longer the case and the police’s response to complex events where the community needed them the most has wound up casting a shadow over their public image.
Take the Lawyer X scandal, Bourke St mass murder, response to the pandemic, youth crime crisis and skyrocketing number of thefts in Victoria as just a few examples.
Confidence in the force has now plummeted to a record low — only half of Victorians say they are satisfied with policing services.
One-in-two Victorians say they don’t believe police treat people fairly and equally and only 54 per cent think police are honest, according to Productivity Commission data covering 2023-24.
Victoria Police said the newest data was “negatively impacted” by a change in collection methodology.
The survey was conducted online for the first time, in addition to over the phone.
Police say respondents are more likely to be harsher online compared to a phone call, and that is why confidence had dropped so rapidly.
But the data still confirms that half the community officers were sworn in to protect don’t trust them to respond professionally.
Experts say they knew this was coming. In fact, many warned the force years ago.
So, where did it all go wrong?
A ‘total lack of leadership’ during crises
On January 20, 2017, chaos erupted in Melbourne’s CBD when 29-year-old James Gargasoulas drove a stolen car through a lunchtime crowd of people on Bourke St, killing six and injuring 27.
Footage captured screams of terror as the drug-induced killer tore down the street.
It later surfaced that senior officers had failed to call for a formal pursuit of Gargasoulas, who was out on bail, in the hours before the attack and instead tried negotiating with him to stand down.
A coroner later said a “perfect storm” of police deficiencies, including poor planning, a lack of assertive leadership, supervision and co-ordinated command control, aided Gargasoulas in his rampage.
Former top cop Kel Glare, who led the force from 1987 to 1992, said the lack of public faith stemmed from such cases of “inept leadership” in the force.
“Members wanted to intervene and had to ask permission, which is wrong,” he told the Herald Sun.
“They should’ve just been able to act and been supported.”
Years before the Bourke St massacre, Mr Glare was already so “disgusted” at the state of Victoria Police, he teamed up with ex-inspector Ivan W Ray to form the Community Advocacy Alliance.
The CAA calls itself “the voice of the people” and has long pushed for a “complete attitude change” in the force and for officers to “approach the issues head-on”.
Mr Glare said new chief commissioner Mike Bush needs to enforce exactly that to win back the public.
Police and their ‘political masters’
What Victorian could forget the world’s longest lockdown?
How police handled the health crisis did huge damage to their image, experts say.
Columnist Steve Price recalled headlines screaming of police firing rubber bullets and pepper spray into crowds of protesters.
Others lined the streets on watch for lockdown runners trying to cross the “ring of steel” between metro and regional Victoria.
“The police were used during Covid almost like a paramilitary force, which people just weren’t prepared to accept,” Mr Price said.
Mr Glare said senior cops should have done more to stop the force becoming “an extension of the political arm of the Labor government” while they had the chance.
Take the ring of steel for example.
“The government needed to be told very firmly that this in an operational decision, (the ring of steel) can’t be done effectively,” Mr Glare said.
“It couldn’t be done and wasn’t done because people breached it all the time.
“Anyone in that position has a responsibility to speak up, whether it costs them their job or not, they have a responsibility to the general population, to the public.”
But watching from the outside, Mr Glare and Mr Ray said the pandemic “only exacerbated” already existing issues in the force, it didn’t create them.
Guardian v warrior mentality
Back in the late ’80s, Mr Glare was determined to instil a service-driven police force.
He looked to the principles of Sir Robert Peel, considered the founder of modern policing, who famously said “the police are the public and the public are the police”.
Peel thought the focus of policing should be on preventing crime rather than just catching crooks.
When crime was low, that’s when you knew police were doing their jobs well — not by how many crims had been arrested.
But Peel also said police could only do their job well if they were trusted and respected by the community.
It’s a sentiment reflected in the most recent crime statistics: As trust has declined since the pandemic, the prevalence of offences throughout Victoria has skyrocketed.
“When I told my force back in my time, they took it very badly, but the fact is police forces only exist for the service they can provide to the public,” Mr Glare said.
“That’s where policing has to start.”
The former top cop said there should be a “total rethink” of how the force operates — and accountability and service-driven policing should be at the forefront.
History and criminology graduate Dr Saskia Penn agrees.
She recently published her PhD investigating how policing culture drives misconduct and injustice in Australia.
After years collating and analysing data, public inquiries and royal commissions, the consensus was clear.
“Ultimately, cultural transformation is critical to breaking the cycle of misconduct and ensuring long-term accountability within Australian policing institutions,” she wrote.
Dr Penn wasn’t at all surprised to see trust in police had rapidly declined.
The fall, in her view, is a “natural” response to the “constant” reports of corruption and misconduct in the force, one recently example: the Lawyer X scandal.
“The takeaways from my research is we need more accountability and that police investigating police is something that the public wants (changed),” Dr Penn said.
In an interview with the Herald Sun after she published her mammoth 291-page investigation, Dr Penn said the key to regaining public faith was a shift away from the “macho” attitude seen in the ranks.
She said how police viewed their own role and job had a “big effect” on how they carry out that job.
“If police conceive their job and their purpose in society to be fighting the bad guy, to be the ‘thin blue line’ between social order and chaos, they will go into their job with that warrior-like mentality,” she said.
“Society wants police to protect our human rights and safety. There’s a disconnect between what we expect of them and how they are actually carrying out their job.
“It takes time and it has to be embedded in every part of what they’re doing, not just training, but on the job as well.”
For its part, Victoria Police said it knows “the trust of the community is key and something we never take for granted”.
It responded to almost a million calls for assistance last financial year, and said the “overwhelming majority” of interactions were positive.
“Our hardworking officers continuing to work tirelessly to keep the community safe, making almost 76,000 arrests last year — the equivalent of 208 each day,” it said in a statement.
“This is the most since electronic records have been kept and almost certainly, a record in Victoria Police’s 172-year history.
“We also continue to do all we can to connect with Victorians, be it through police out serving the community, or more formal settings like regular town hall style meetings with residents.”
Facing the cameras
Fifty-four per cent of Victoria think cops are honest — 21 per cent less than 10 years ago, noting the change in collection methodology over that time.
Mr Price said the decline was a “direct reference to police command refusing to tell us how bad crime is”.
“Media conference after media conference … when you ask them ‘do we have a youth crime crisis’, they pump out the same spin as what their political leaders pump out,” he said.
“There is a feeling among the community that the police are now beholden to the politicians as opposed to being the stand alone Victorian Police force with its own way of doing things.”
While top cops fronted up to media praising the force last year, the public was well aware the operation was crumbling from within.
First, officers walked off the job and plastered their cars in slogans demanding pay rises in a very public dispute with the state government.
Cops parked their cars near speed cameras and warned drivers to slow down to drive down profits.
Then, members voted a no-confidence motion against former top cop Shane Patton, forcing him out the door.
“Never goes over well with the public when they see that the members on the ground don’t have any confidence in their leader,” Mr Glare said.
So, how will the new top commissioner Mike Bush turn the ship around?
“Ignore your political masters,” Mr Price said.
“Be honest with the public about who is committing these crimes, call early for the magistrate court system to be overhauled and magistrates to be tougher on bail and talk to your troops — the actual police officers — and not talk to the politicians.”
Mr Glare said the new top cop knew change was needed.
“I think (Bush) will have a very firm grip on what needs to happen to change the culture and to change the priorities of Victoria Police.” he said.
Reactive policing
Mr Glare said he warned the government and Victoria Police more than 10 years ago the state would see a “youth crime tsunami” if they didn’t become proactive in their approach.
This year, youth crime hit a new record high.
A total 25,275 criminal incidents were linked to children aged 10 to 17 in the year to March.
Three in every five robberies and nearly one in two aggravated burglaries were carried out by children.
Mr Glare said the force needed to get back to preventing crime rather than just chasing crooks.
He mentioned his police in schools program, which was axed in 2006, as a way to get kids back on track.
The surging crime rate has left many Melburnians scared in their own homes, as told throughout the Herald Sun’s Suburbs Under Siege campaign.
Stories of families being targeted in terrifying home invasions and threatened with machetes before their cars are driven at dangerous speeds on wild chases have become scarify common.
Price said Victorians were increasingly feeling they couldn’t trust the cops on the back of their own experiences in times of trouble.
“You go back 10 years and the police were very respected,” he said.
“You relied on them to keep you safe. If someone broke into your house, you’d dial triple-0 and they’d come. Now you get a recorded message and you simply talk to a machine.
“The whole system is broken down, from the top down, and I think you can lay a lot of the blame firmly at the feet of both the Daniel Andrews and Jacinta Allan governments that have not been as supportive of the police as we would expect them to be.”
A chance for change
Victorians still know very little about the new boss — but they have high expectations that things will change.
As the saying goes, it’s easy to overestimate what someone can do in one year.
But it’s the next 10 that shouldn’t be underestimated: the legacy Bush will leave behind, his impact on culture from the ground up and how closely he will choose to align, or keep separate, the force from the government.
It’s how Bush chooses to shape trust this next decade will be pivotal to the force — and to every Victorian.
Read more about Mike Bush’s mission in his first interview as Victoria Police’s Chief Commissioner here.
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