By Alesha Capone
DRUGS and alcohol, residential burglaries and robberies will be targeted by the newly-formed Divisional Crime Tasking Unit in Brimbank.
The squad, which will have about 25 permanent members, will be based at the Keilor Downs police station.
The area will not receive any new police, but the unit will be staffed on a rotating basis by officers from Sunshine and Keilor Downs.
The Acting Brimbank Local Area Commander, Inspector Paul Allinson, said Monday’s official launch of the Divisional Crime Tasking Unit was exciting and “something which has been considered for several years”.
“The real reason we moved to amalgamate was to achieve the efficiencies in the way we operate and focus on our priorities,” Insp Allinson said.
He said there would be a “focus on residential burglaries, drugs and alcohol, robbery and a human-source management team” within the new taskforce.
Insp Allinson said the “human-source management team” would focus on “enhancing capability to manage informants” and cultivating informants effectively.
“It’s an ongoing focus for us to enhance the flow of information about illicit crime activity, in part, and other areas like hoons, one avenue of information for us on that is the anonymous Crime Stoppers line which has been a huge success,” he said.
Insp Allinson said the detectives, sergeants and uniform members who made up the new strike force would be a flexible working team, able to concentrate an issue such as drugs one day, then all collaborate on a burglary operation the next day.
“That’s not to say drugs won’t be the focus of police and officers on foot patrol and on highway patrol, they’re just as likely to find people in possession of drugs,” he said.
“This team will focus on the more serious aspects of drug activity, which is manufacturing and production.”
Insp Allinson said this would include heroin-trafficking, cannabis and amphetamines.
“We believe our ability to task to identified priorities will be improved and obviously the expertise and efficiency of those teams will be quickly built up over time,” he said.
“The community can be more confident we will have a sharper focus and alignment of expertise on areas I’ve mentioned.”
