Victoria Police
primary law enforcement agency of Victoria, Australia
Victoria Police is the primary law enforcement agency of the Australian state of Victoria. It was formed in 1853 and currently operates under the Victoria Police Act 2013.
As of June 2023, Victoria Police has 21,326 staff, comprising 15,842 police officers, 1,412 Protective Services Officers, 346 Police Custody Officers and 216 Police Recruits in training, 2 reservists and 3,507 Victorian Public Service (VPS) employees across 333 police stations. Victoria Police's budget for 2023–2024 is A$4.13 billion.
Between 31 July 2018 and 18 July 2019, Victoria Police recorded 514,398 offences, an increase of 1.5% from the previous year. Victoria Police also responded to 897,016 emergency calls, a reduction of 0.3% from previous year.
History
Background
A couple of years after the first Europeans settled there, in September 1836 the area around Melbourne, known as the District of Port Phillip, became part of the colony of New South Wales. From 1851 until 1901 it became the Colony of Victoria, with its own government within the British Empire. In 1901 it became a state of the new Commonwealth of Australia.
Early history
The early settlers of Melbourne provided their own police force, and in 1840 there were 12 constables who were paid two shillings and nine pence per day, and the chief constable was Mr.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Victoria Police” as primary law enforcement agency of Victoria, Australia. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the history & society register because the source frames it as primary law enforcement agency of Victoria, Australia. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Contemporary correspondence, administrative files and participant testimony can test how later narratives organized the event or institution. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 7, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1406658. VIAF identifies the subject as 261138377. The Library of Congress control number is n85082181. None of the 4 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1853, 2013, 2023 and 2024.
Later summaries often reconcile disputed chronology or motive more neatly than the contemporary record permits. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Compare institutional narratives with records created by participants and affected communities. Dates and formal titles are useful anchors, but not substitutes for context.
- Event chronology
- Institutional context
- Locating named record creators
Contemporary correspondence, government or organizational records, oral histories and cited historical scholarship.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Victoria Police”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Victoria Police primary sources, Victoria Police archive and Victoria research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Victoria Police”?
- Who created the surviving record, and for what administrative purpose?
- Which voices are present, absent or mediated by the institution?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Victoria Police” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.