Australia’s culture capital, an image vital to the state’s tourism, has been plagued for years by escalating and rampant street-gang violence, home invasions, carjackings and assaults on police.

Restaurants and community centres have been trashed and YouTube videos have racked up thousands of hits showing sprawling street brawls involving, at times, hundreds of violent offenders.

Accounts of “steaming” gangs (large groups that storm an area bashing and robbing people) and riots regularly occur anywhere from Federation Square to shopping centres and
sports clubs.

This week it came to a head with Victoria’s police for the first time admitting rampaging youths, mostly from the Sudanese community, should be classified as gangs. It followed Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull accusing the state’s Premier Daniel Andrews of not having a handle on the problem.

Meanwhile, Immigration Minister Peter Dutton threatened to deport offenders, saying what everyone else had been whispering: “People are afraid to go out at night.”

At the Boxing Day sales in Melbourne’s Highpoint Shopping Centre, a police officer trying to arrest an alleged shoplifter was assaulted. The officer, a five-year veteran of the force, was surrounded by a group of African teens and kicked in the head. The attack was indicative of the lack of respect shown to Victoria’s often outgunned police.

Melbourne Children’s Court was told the 17-year-old attacker felt no remorse and could continue to attack officers and menace the public.

“He harboured a hatred towards police and he stated he had been biding his time,” a detective told the court.

Last month an internal memo circulated to members of Victoria’s police force warned gangs were trying to lure police into attacks.

It outlined sinister failed plans by “30-40 African” gang members to lure officers into a laneway “with no escape or exit paths”.

Violence by Melbourne’s Sudanese gangs escalated in 2016 with Police Minister Lisa Neville describing it as a “new level” of youth crime. Victoria has since recruited an extra 3135 officers to deal with it.

The terrifying Apex Gang, formed six years ago, came to prominence after a street brawl with a rival group at the Moomba Festival. It is linked to bashings and a series of carjackings and has since merged with YCW gang, a mixture of white, Pacific Islander, Maori, Afghan and Indian youths.

Also linked to Apex is Menace to Society (MTS), another group of mostly African youths. The group’s initials are frequently found spray-painted at scenes of violence or riots.

While police initially hesitated to categorise the African youths as gangs, a term that’s usually reserved for bikies and other criminals within a structured organisation, Acting Chief Commissioner Shane Patton this week conceded: “They’re behaving like street gangs, so let’s call them that — that’s what they are.

“We have for a significant period of time said that there is an issue with over-representation by African youth in serious and violent offending as well as public disorder issues.”

Comprising 0.5 per cent of Victoria’s population, a wave of Sudanese migrants came to Australia fleeing violence during the Sudanese civil wars that ended in 2005.

Victorian crime data reveals Sudanese migrants are over-represented in crime statistics, with 1.5 per cent of criminal offenders in the state being Sudanese.

For several months, residents living in Tarneit have been terrified by the wanton destruction of Ecoville Community Park.

Once a family-friendly space in the city’s west, the park has become a no-go zone. Fires are lit, buildings smashed, drugs dealt and gang signs sprayed on the walls of what was a community centre.

In December, passers-by stood helplessly on St Kilda Beach as young people, many of whom were African in appearance, assaulted each other and bystanders.

Police were also called that night to a McDonald’s that was trashed by 60 people and to several robberies.

Later that month, police were called to a near-riot at an Airbnb rental at Werribee where two 17-year-old girls were assaulted.

The officers were attacked, and had to call for assistance from the dog squad, tactical police and a helicopter. The same night at Docklands, another rental was trashed — the latest in a series of houses being destroyed.

While the gangs’ crimes have come to national attention over the past month, 2016 saw a spate of brazen attacks on jewellery stores in Melbourne by men of African appearance, as well as a series of violent home invasions.

A complex topic involving immigration, justice, policing and race, Melbourne’s gangs have long been controversial.

So terrified are Melburnians of African gangs, they refuse to leave their homes, Dutton said this week.

“The reality is people (in Melbourne) are scared to go out at restaurants of a night time because they’re followed home by these gangs, home invasions, and cars are stolen,” Mr Dutton told 2GB.

“Of course it’s African gang violence,” the minister added.