Neighbourhood Policing

Neighbourhood Policing is a policing strategy where officers are assigned to specific geographic areas. They work to build relationships, address local concerns, and improve safety in the neighbourhood.

Our commitment to community

Neighbourhood Policing ensures local community concerns are central to decision making. It focuses on:

being more visible and accessible to their local community
actively listening to their community acting on community safety concerns
working in partnership with others to address safety concerns.

Understanding local safety concerns

Neighbourhood Policing is about listening to the community and understanding their safety concerns.

We encourage you to share safety concerns with your local police through:

everyday interactions such as at events
talking to officers patrolling public areas
visiting your local police station.

Local police will gather, record, and monitor these issues and concerns.

Working together to address safety concerns

Local police will compile a register of public safety issues that matter most to their local community. They will then be tasked to address these issues, or work with community safety partner organisations when issues are more complex.

We do this by forming a Local Safety Committee in each Police Service Area. This committee is made up of community groups, government, and business stakeholders.

Each committee will develop a Local Safety Plan based on the community concerns. They then deliver prevention-focussed strategies to address the concerns, through both policing and non-policing activity.

View transcript

Community Sentiment Survey 2024

Each year, Victoria Police seeks community feedback on safety concerns through our annual Community Sentiment Survey. Your responses help us to identify the issues that matter most to Victorians.

The 2024 Victoria Police Community Sentiment Survey ran from 1 to 31 May 2024.
Victorians participated in the survey to share safety concerns in their local area, and how comfortable they feel about approaching police and protective services officers in non-emergency situations.
We received over 13,000 responses.
Key safety concerns
The top four safety concerns in 2024 remained the same as those reported in 2022 and 2023, with the order slightly changing each year.
This year, the ‘serious and organised crime’ theme ranked fifth, replacing the ‘cybercrime and online safety’ category from 2023 and ‘family violence’ from the 2022 survey.
Top five community safety concerns 2024:
1. Safety in public places
2. Safety of my property and possessions
3. Drugs and alcohol
4. Road safety
5. Serious and organised crime.
Top five community safety concerns 2023:
1. Safety in public places
2. Safety of my property and possessions
3. Road safety
4. Drugs and alcohol
5. Cybercrime or online safety.
Most common responses about how to improve community safety:
- Increased police presence
- More patrols
- Improving community environments, such as better lighting on streets/more CCTV.
View the results of Victoria Police Community Sentiment Survey 2024 on Engage Victoria(opens in a new window).

Updates to community safety initiatives

Local police implement a number of initiatives to help improve community safety in line with the Neighbourhood Policing Model.

We want to show you we are listening to your safety concerns and taking action to address them.

Local police will provide updates about the various safety issues raised and Neighbourhood Policing activities undertaken through:

local media
Eyewatch pages on Facebook.

Each Police Service Area has an Eyewatch page on Facebook where you can:

keep up to date with Neighbourhood Policing priorities and initiatives
access local safety and crime prevention information.

Find your local Victoria Police Eyewatch page.

Programs and initiatives About Victoria Police

Updated 5 May 2025