Victoria’s police force is undergoing its most ambitious restructure in over a decade, as its leadership moves to channel more than one million frontline hours back into active policing in response to sharply rising crime.

Chief Commissioner Mike Bush acknowledged the state is facing a “crime problem,” and announced sweeping changes to free officers from administrative burdens and rebuild public confidence.

The reform plan centres on moving uniformed staff out of station counters and desk roles, assigning non-sworn personnel and retired officers to manage reporting and paperwork.

Currently, police at reception desks alone log an estimated 4,000 hours daily, or roughly 1.4 million hours annually.

The transition to administrative backups will be trialled over the next three to six months.

As part of the overhaul, Victoria Police will collapse certain executive structures: the number of deputy commissioners will be cut from six to four, and a new deputy post will focus explicitly on youth crime prevention.

A newly established State Crime Co-ordination Centre, to be operational in early 2026, will centralise intelligence, data analytics and deployment decisions.

Bush framed the changes as essential to restoring operational agility.

“We have a crime problem here in Victoria.

There is no escaping this fact,” he stated, warning that rising victimisation in homes and communities is unacceptable.

The reforms assert that many tasks currently handled by frontline officers could better be performed by support units, allowing sworn officers to focus on patrols, interventions and deterrence.

Released crime data underpins the urgency: recorded criminal incidents in the year to June 2025 reached 483,583, an 18.3 percent rise from the prior year.

When adjusted for population growth, that amounts to a 13.8 percent increase in overall offending.

Theft offences have been the fastest growing category, and Victoria’s crime figures now stand at the highest levels on record.

The opposition welcomed the overhaul’s intent but cautioned that it must be paired with filling more than 2,000 existing vacancies in the force.

The Police Association expressed cautious support, endorsing the shift toward frontline and preventive policing while stressing the need for careful implementation.

Bush, who began his term on 27 June after serving as New Zealand’s chief constable, has long emphasised prevention and community engagement.

He arrives at Victoria Police amid calls for transformation, promising a more responsive, data-driven and community-focused model of law enforcement as the state confronts its rising crime burden.