On the beat: New police for Geelong start patrolling

MORE than 20 new police officers have started across Geelong, Colac and the Surf Coast since July as part of the biggest investment in regional policing in Victoria Police’s 167-year history.

In March, Victoria Police announced the Geelong and Surf Coast Police Service Areas would receive 63 extra police over the following 12 months – the most new police provided to the region in one allotment.

Since this announcement, eight frontline constables have already started at stations across Bellarine, Torquay, Colac and Winchelsea, while a new sergeant has also started at Portarlington and will lead a team of eight permanent police members.

Two of the 21 new officers in the Geelong Police Service Area are Constable Tom James and Constable Ryan Jones.

Constable James grew up in Warrandyte, and originally worked in radio in central Melbourne.

“I always wanted to do this (be a police officer) after I graduated school, but felt too young when I first graduated, so waited until I was ready to go and went for it,” he said.

“My wife has family and friends down in Geelong and we were looking to buy our first home, so I requested to be posted in Geelong, crossed my fingers, and we got it.”

Constable Jones is from the Bellarine and comes from a profession closely aligned with law enforcement, having previously worked as a sheriff in Geelong.

“I always wanted to be on the force as well, it was the same thing as Tom – coming out of high school, I was too young, I needed a bit of experience,” he said.

“I worked my way through various jobs including as a sheriff before applying, was posted in Geelong and hopefully I’ll stay here.”

As well as the constables, 13 shared divisional resources, including family violence detectives, sex offences and child abuse detectives, criminal investigators, and highway patrol members, have also started.

A further 17 officers are set to join by early April 2021, as well as another 24 specialised members working across family violence, sex offences and child abuse, highway patrol, criminal investigations and crime scene services.

Geelong police Superintendent Craig Gillard said the new police had already provided a substantial boost to policing efforts across the local community.

“We used these new resources to establish the Geelong Sexual Offences & Child Abuse Proactive Investigation Team, which proactively targets some of our region’s most heinous offenders and puts them behind bars as soon as possible.

“We’ve also boosted the number of family violence detectives in the region, who will continue to work as part of Operation Ribbon to proactively check in on those who are assessed as high risk future victims or perpetrators of family violence.”