Thick blue line: Victoria builds the country’s biggest police force

Victoria has become one of the most heavily policed states in Australia after a two decade-long law and order rivalry between the ALP and Coalition helped build the country’s largest law enforcement organisation.

The state’s war on crime has seen spending on police, courts and prisons grow at double or triple the rate of other states and territories over the past decade, with Victoria now arresting and jailing people at levels not seen since the 19th century.

Police face protesters in SeptemberCredit: Chris Hopkins

Growth in criminal justice system spending has outstripped that of education and health since 2013, evidence of the political priority given to police numbers and law and order, especially by the Andrews government since it was first elected in 2014.

Crossbench MP Fiona Patten, who is chairing a parliamentary inquiry into the state’s criminal justice system, said she was concerned that mounting law and order spending was diverting funds from programs that could help prevent crime.

“You can’t build mental health facilities, you can’t fund the affordable housing we need, while investing in police and prisons at the rate we are,” the Reason Party leader and prominent upper house MP told The Age.

Victoria Police now has 22,000 personnel and government funding worth $4 billion a year, surpassing that of NSW Police even though the northern state is three-times the geographical size with 1.4 million more people.

Victoria has 327 police staff per 100,000 population, substantially more than NSW (263) or any other eastern state or the ACT. The most heavily policed jurisdiction in the country is the Northern Territory.

On the question of police numbers, Victoria Police refused to comment on whether it now has an appropriate level of staffing. But a spokeswoman noted the recent bushfires and coronavirus pandemic had demonstrated how “agile and responsive” the organisation needs to be.

“There is no doubt police are working harder than ever, locking up offenders in record numbers, partly in due to the additional resources,” the police spokeswoman said.

“Just like any other organisation, Victoria Police will continue to review its resources to ensure it has the right number of people in the right places.”

Spending on police and prisons has ballooned in Victoria as governments and oppositions have responded to lobbying both from the influential Police Association and high-profile crimes and scare campaigns.

Notable in particular was Premier Daniel Andrews’ surprise December 2016 announcement – amid controversies around African gang violence, a break-out from the Parkville detention centre and a spike in the crime rate – of a $2 billion investment in more than 3100 extra police, the biggest single increase in the state’s police numbers.

Twenty years of tough-on-crime legislation by Labor and Coalition governments has also driven up prisoner numbers due to the scrapping of remission and suspended sentences, the toughening of parole, especially after Adrian Bayley murdered Jill Meagher in 2012, and restrictive bail laws after James Gargasoulas’ 2017 Bourke Street killings.

Graduation at the Police academyCredit: Joe Armao

The prison population almost doubled in the decade to 2019 and the annual cost of housing and supervising inmates more than tripled. Figures presented to the Public Accounts and Estimates Committee in September reveal the government now expects the cost of running prisons to again double to more than $4 billion by 2030.

The Andrews government has repeatedly said it does not apologise for its spending on police and prisons. Responding to questions from The Age, Police Minister Lisa Neville pointed to the work by police through the pandemic as evidence of their important role in Victoria.

“Victoria Police have been on the frontline every day of the pandemic supporting the health response and enforcing the Chief Health Officer’s directions to keep Victorians safe,” said Ms Neville. “I’m proud and supportive of the work of our police, which has undoubtedly saved lives.”

But the government is under growing pressure to wind back laws that have put hundreds of low-level offenders in prison on remand who would not otherwise be there, with a notable increase in female and First Nations prisoners in particular.

The Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service is calling for bail reform and more rigour in decisions about police numbers.

“Everything else in government seems to require a business case,” says acting chief executive, George Selvanera. “Why is it that police numbers and prisoner numbers can increase exponentially without the government pausing to ask: is this the right strategy? Is this value for money? Where is the business case justifying this investment?’”

In May, The Age revealed confidential high-level government documents from late 2019 and early 2020 that showed government concern about the impact of bail laws and proposals to wind them back.

However, major reform now looks unlikely before the 2022 election.

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