Port Phillip police are using intelligence-led investigations and highly visible patrols to target high-harm offending, organised retail theft and threats to community safety, Local Area Commander Inspector Brett Coloe says.
Public reports, trader intelligence and police data are helping officers identify offenders, link crimes and build stronger cases.
The multi-pronged strategy focuses on serious violence, organised retail theft and protecting local cultural communities during periods of heightened concern.
While recorded crime is declining statewide, offences in Port Phillip remain stubbornly steady. Crime Statistics Agency data shows a 0.02 per cent increase in the municipality over the previous three months.
Dismantling high-harm offending
Coloe says resources are being deployed to reduce high-harm offending – crimes that most severely damage community confidence.
“These are serious, violent and invasive crimes that directly damage a community’s sense of safety. They include aggravated burglaries – where offenders enter occupied homes – carjackings, home invasions and thefts from motor vehicles.”
“What really shakes community confidence are those aggravated burglaries where you have offenders coming into homes,” Inspector Coloe says, noting that juvenile offenders have driven a significant proportion of these crimes.
“Despite the overall figures, we have made significant inroads into high-harm offences such as burglaries and similar crimes, which have dropped significantly across Port Phillip. We are committed to reducing offending across all categories.”
The latest crime data from police shows a 38% decrease in aggravated home burglaries, which is indicative of more residents taking extra precautions to secure their homes such as locking doors, windows and doggy doors.
At the same time, police have confronted another destructive trend: targeted night-time arson attacks on licensed venues. Driven by extortion attempts in the liquor industry, the attacks mirror the earlier arson campaign against tobacco outlets.
Inspector Coloe said overseas organisers were using digital networks to recruit young offenders, sometimes paying as little as $500 to set fire to businesses worth millions of dollars.
Under Operation Eclipse, Victoria Police deployed dedicated night-shift patrols to monitor licensed venues across Port Phillip. Inspector Coloe said officers had intercepted suspects in stolen cars carrying jerry cans of fuel. He said Port Phillip had not recorded a venue arson since 15 May.
The myth of the ‘cost-of-living thief’: confronting organised retail crime
Retail theft has also become a significant economic threat to Port Phillip’s shopping strips, where Crime Statistics Agency data shows a spike in offences. Inspector Coloe rejects claims that the rise is driven mainly by people struggling with the cost of living.
“Some in the community will say it’s a cost-of-living issue and people are stealing to feed themselves,” Coloe says. “I don’t believe that’s the case. The offenders we are processing for high-volume retail theft are rampant, recidivist and operating multiple times a day.”
Police say the offending is organised and high-volume. A recent operation remanded five unrelated adults aged 24 to 57, with alcohol their main target.
Local police intelligence suggests around 40 per cent of reported retail thefts occur at liquor outlets, with bottle shops and supermarkets in Balaclava, St Kilda and South Melbourne among the hotspots.
Police linked one arrested adult to more than 90 thefts in South Melbourne. Another person, released from prison in March, was committing an average of two thefts a day by May and accounted for almost half of shop thefts in the area targeted during that period.
Police are combining digital intelligence with targeted street patrols to address the continuing losses borne by local businesses.
Auror allows subscribing traders to upload CCTV footage and record thefts. Police access to the platform enables the Crime Reduction Team to identify suspects and trace offending across multiple venues, including incidents that were never formally reported.
“I understand that some traders may feel it is a lost cause and may think there is nothing that can be done, I can assure you that is not the case,” Coloe says. “But they must report every incident. A complete record across multiple shops gives us the leverage to convince a court to remand an offender. If one shop reports, they might get a summons. If multiple traders report the thefts we may have enough to remand an offender into custody and into our cells.”
Police are urging traders to use the Victoria Police online reporting portal immediately after an incident. The portal allows traders to report the incident and upload CCTV footage directly for investigators without having to call a police station.
Operation Activate began on 21 September, deploying local officers – including Port Phillip’s Neighbourhood Policing Team – to high-street hotspots each day. Rotating between shopping strips such as Acland and Clarendon streets, the patrols target the places and times favoured by retail thieves.
Safeguarding the Jewish High Holy Day period
Protecting Port Phillip’s historic Jewish community during the High Holy Day period has been another police priority amid heightened global and local concern.
Under Operation Park, police have conducted almost 20,000 proactive patrols over two years around synagogues, Jewish schools and community hubs.
Police coordinate with local rabbis and the Community Security Group, sharing real-time intelligence and deploying mobile CCTV trailers and police facilities.
Inspector Coloe said no security incidents were recorded during Rosh Hashanah or Sukkot. Police remained mobilised for Simchat Torah, the final festival in the period.
Inspector Coloe says this intelligence-informed approach underpins policing across Port Phillip, combining targeted patrols, information sharing and visible intervention to counter high-harm offending, retail theft and threats to community safety.
