By CAM LUCADOU-WELLS
FAMILY violence incidents are being “triaged” by frustrated Casey police due to a lack of divisional van patrols, claim police officers.
A Casey-based police member in the Dandenong Magistrates’ Court witness box this month said his divisional van was delayed during a family violence callout on a weekday mid-afternoon.
This was due to the divvy being the only one available in the municipality at the time, which, he added, was often the case.
Police Association Victoria spokesman Sergeant Wayne Gatt said such a situation was “not atypical” due to increasing workloads and diminishing frontline resources at police stations.
“There’s circumstances that can occur quite easily where you have three or four divisional vans tied up and only have one available for new jobs.
“There’s no fat in the resources.”
Family violence callouts, although a high priority for police, were being “triaged” and forced back in a queue of jobs, Sgt Gatt said.
“It’s a growing trend where members of the public have to wait.”
Sgt Gatt said he had received calls from Casey police officers in “frustration and despair”; they had “little respite” from back-to-back night and weekend shifts.
Funding for frontline policing’s divisional vans and watch-house crews was “less than ever before”, he said.
It was being diverted into taskforces such as the family violence unit.
The unit was a “great, commendable initiative” focused on recidivist offenders but a divisional van was still needed for frontline domestic violence, Sgt Gatt said.
“The rationale is taskforce policing reduces the workload for frontline divisions.
“That’s sometimes the case, but there will always be a call for a divisional van to attend crime scenes and accident scenes.
“This is increasing and not being resolved by taskforce policing.”
A teenage family violence victim in Casey-Cardinia told Star News Group she and her grandmother waited for police for an hour while sheltering from her enraged, ice-addicted boyfriend in October.
As they waited, the man screamed threats from outside the house, smashed five windows and sent messages that he’d kill the pair.
A Victoria Police spokeswoman said there was “never just one divisional van patrol rostered on in Casey”.
“The number of divisional van patrols rostered on is dependent on need and is increased during peak times.”
She said general-duties police were also supported by divisional vans from surrounding areas, and specialist units such as the Critical Incident Response Team, family violence and highway patrol teams.
“The Casey community does, and will continue to, receive a 24-hour police response from resources across the Police Service Area (PSA).
“We are keen to build a greater level of flexibility in our rostering and deployment models, so if a high level of service demand is needed – for example, to respond to a spike in crime rates in a certain area – then we have the flexibility to move our police around.”
