FUTURE PROOFING
Community Policing
The stark difference between the dated brick building of the old Werribee Police Station and the new state-of-the-art Werribee Police Complex is a fitting representation of how the community and policing in the area has changed over the years. The City of Wyndham, the council area Werribee falls within, today has a population of nearly 303,000 and is among the fastestgrowing local government areas (LGAs) in Victoria.
“As the population grows, so does the amount of work for police in the area.
With about 19,000 new residents moving to the region each year, it doesn’t look to be slowing down anytime soon and the City of Wyndham Council expects the population to be more than 500,000 by 2041.
Adapting to the increasing workload has meant Werribee has become home to more policing units over the years, covering a range of specialist areas.
Werribee Senior Sergeant Stephen O'Connell knows firsthand just how rapidly the area is growing. Not only has he worked at the station for more than a decade, he has been a resident of Werribee for just as long. “There’s a new housing development popping up every week it seems, bringing more and more residents to the area,” Sen Sgt Cooper said.
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POLICE LIFE | SPRING/SUMMER 2021-22
“When I first started at Werribee, we probably got half the jobs through in a shift that we do now, and it continues to grow each year.”
The brand new, state-of-the-art Werribee Police Complex, which opened in July, now houses local uniform police along with specialist family violence, sexual offences and crime investigation units. “With such a large population, we see all ranges of crimes in the area and we now have all of our policing resources in the one place, which makes it easier for them to collaborate to best investigate all types of crime,” Sen Sgt O'Connell said.
In addition to being a large community, Sen Sgt Cooper also noted that the diversity of the community adds another point of difference to policing in the area. City of Wyndham Council statistics show that almost half of all residents in the LGA were born overseas, coming from 162 different countries. The LGA also has the largest Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander population in Greater Melbourne. “It’s important for us to ensure we are working with all these different cultural communities to address their needs, issues or concerns regarding criminal activity,” Sen Sgt O'Connell said. “Having people come from such diverse backgrounds means there are many different views on police and we work hard to embed ourselves in these communities to let them know we are here to help them should they ever need us.” Senior Sergeant Vanessa Tzounos said the new complex — which was funded as part of the 2017-18 state budget — provides outstanding facilities to help police in their duties and that the development and design were done with the community front of mind.
