PSOs to be deployed in shopping centres during Christmas rush

Protective services officers will return to suburban shopping centres for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic to provide a visible deterrent against anti-social and violent behaviour in public places in the lead-up to Christmas and over the summer months.

In a trial to be announced in coming days by the Allan government and Victoria Police, PSOs and police not rostered onto regular shifts will be deployed at 10 shopping centres across Melbourne, where rising rates of violence are fuelling community concerns about public safety.

The details of the trial were confirmed in a statement by Victoria Police. It said the trial would begin in December, run for 90 days and might become permanent, depending on its success. Highpoint Shopping Centre in Melbourne’s west and Northland will be included in the trial, with police to decide the other locations.

Northland was the scene of graphic violence this year after rival youth gang members armed with machetes hacked at each other in a wild brawl in May, and again in June, when a man drove a stolen car through the shopping centre.

The government declined to respond to questions about its plans. If the trial leads to a permanent re-purposing of PSOs, it will be the most significant change to their remit since 2010, when the Baillieu government was elected on a promise to put two at every train station each night between 6pm and the final train service.

The most politically sensitive detail, which this masthead was unable to confirm on Friday, is whether the government will break with this long-standing policy to free up the PSOs it needs to deploy to shopping centres.

One option open to the government is to reduce the nightly PSO coverage of train stations to 79 “premium” stations – those with the largest patronage – and remove them from smaller stations which have infrequent services and low passenger numbers at night.

Police who volunteer to take part in the trial will need to be paid overtime wages for their shifts. The cost of this Christmas bonus is expected to be revealed next month when Treasurer Jaclyn Symes publishes her mid-year budget update.

When the opposition promised before the 2022 election to station PSOs round-the-clock at five hospital emergency departments for two years to deter violence against health workers, their policy was costed at $28 million.

“These police and PSO shopping centre shifts are on top of existing patrols,” the police statement said. “They are extra, voluntary shifts to keep you safe.”

Victoria Police said the locations and timing of the patrols would be determined by police intelligence, crime data, calls for assistance and existing relationships with shopping centre managements.

“The centres deployed to may change at a moment’s notice guided by intelligence – ensuring we can have the biggest impact on detecting and deterring crime. The success of the trial will be assessed before any decisions about it being made permanent,” the force said.

The trial has the backing of the Police Association of Victoria and the Shopping Centre Council Association (SCCA), which has long supported expanding the jurisdiction of PSOs beyond the public transport network.

SCCA chief executive Angus Nardi, speaking ahead of an expected government announcement, reiterated his support for the idea.

“If the government was to announce a targeted operation at shopping centres we’d strongly welcome it, and we’d be pleased to work with the government and Victoria police to help ensure its success,” Nardi said.

The trial will require a change of Victoria Police regulations to include shopping centres as a “designated area” where PSOs have the power to carry guns, search on reasonable suspicion and arrest. The current regulations list only train stations, tram and bus stops, adjacent car parks and roads used for public transport routes.

PSOs will work in tandem with police, who have a deeper level of training and greater powers to investigate crime. This already occurs under an integrated public transport model introduced by the Andrews government in 2018 to enable PSOs to go from guarding train stations to patrolling the wider public transport system.

A police source said PSOs were a proven deterrent to anti-social behaviour in public places. “Time has told us they are extremely effective,” they said. “The issues we are confronting in shopping centres at the moment are not dissimilar to what we found at train stations. It is just a different public place. ”

The government first raised the idea of expanding of its use of PSOs seven years ago when it was under pressure to respond to the city’s last crime crisis, which centred on a spate of home invasions, carjackings and other violent crimes by youth gangs in Melbourne’s south-east and western suburbs.

The police minister at the time, Lisa Neville, flagged that the government and police would consider using PSOs at “crowded places such as shopping centres and malls”.

During the pandemic, when much of Melbourne spent two years working from home and the use of public transport plummeted, the government used its emergency powers to authorise PSOs to help enforce COVID restrictions in shopping centres and other public places.

The government changed the law five years ago to enable police to deploy PSOs outside the public transport system to wherever they were needed to bolster community safety. “We’ve seen the vital role PSOs play during the coronavirus pandemic as part of Operation Shielding, and we’ll continue to give Victoria Police the powers, tools and resources they need to keep Victorians safe,” Neville said at the time.

Victoria Police has never made use of this provision, the police source said.

Shane Patton, the then chief commissioner, last year confirmed that once annual leave, sickness and other absences were taken into account, Victoria did not have enough qualified PSOs to cover every railway station every night as well as patrol the broader transport system.

Police Chief Commissioner Mike Bush, in his discussions with government about how best to respond to Melbourne’s current crime crisis, has made clear his support for greater use of PSOs.

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