The Liberals earlier this year announced its intention to create a $50 million, four-year police in schools program if elected in November. 

The program will fund an additional 100 new police officers to work as school resource officers to complement the existing Victoria Police youth resource officers, while 10 regional secondary schools with ‘at risk’ challenges will have a full-time police member for a two-year trial period.

Read more: Infrastructure and youth crime the focus for Liberal candidate Ian Ellis

Mr Ellis, a former policeman, said while specific schools in Bendigo did not need dedicated officers, youngsters would benefit from greater interaction with police in a school setting. 

“The program is so the kids aren't necessarily scared of police and they respect the police. The kids will not respect anybody else unless they respect themselves,” he said.

“It (police in schools) can generate respect which I think is lacking in the community these days.”

He said reintroducing a version of the former Victoria Police ‘Police Schools Involvement Program’, which was axed in 2005, would help reduce crime and increase respect between youngsters and police.

Mr Ellis said the program may have been removed because of its intangible benefits.

“It’s difficult to measure the success of proactive programs like that,” he said. 

The Liberals claim Victoria is the only state in Victoria not to have a police in schools program. 

Bendigo East MP Jacinta Allan said: “Victoria Police is already working in our schools – they are out in our community every day, they are working with young people in our schools and on the street through a range of programs.”

“Unlike the Liberals who cut police, we’ve funded more youth specialist officers that will work in the areas of greatest need – and over the past 19 years 7000 additional police officers have been funded – all of them under Labor governments.

“While incidents of violence and aggressive behaviour remain relatively rare in Victoria’s more than 1500 government schools – earlier this year we announced our new protective schools package will also help to address this kind of behaviour.”

The state government’s $8.9 million protective schools package will train educators on how to respond to violent and aggressive incidents, and provide support to manage long-term and complex student cases. Around 100 Victoria Police youth resource officers work in a variety of settings, including schools, sporting clubs and at public housing.

Bendigo police are open to the idea of greater involvement in schools, providing it is adequately funded and resourced, but an educator has warned of the social stigma attached to schools with a full-time law enforcement presence.

Senior Sergeant David Rowe said currently police didn’t have much to do with schools, “unless there’s a specific issue”.

Working with “at risk” youth with a number of agencies and organisations was a priority for police, he said. 

“As far as dedicating someone to schools, when you consider my role and the role of members that work in the youth space, there's a lot of schools - it would take more than one person to do that,” he said.

Police were involved with youth in less formal settings, according to Senior Sergeant Rowe, who said a new COPPS soccer program would be launched next month, the aim of which was to reconnect young people with their communities through police-run soccer clinics.

“It’s about developing relationships and respect with police in a fun environment,” he said.

Reacting to Ian Ellis’ claim some youngsters were scared of police, Senior Sergeant Rowe said: “Young people certainly don’t feel scared of us, our aim is to make sure they’re not scared of us.” 

Bendigo Senior Secondary College principal Dale Pearce said many schools found themselves in a situation where it would be helpful to have someone of a law enforcement background to give advice on certain issues. 

“Any opportunity to proactively engage with external services  – health, police, anything of that nature – schools would generally welcome that as long as it’s done in a proactive fashion and they're there not necessarily in response to issues, but they're there to support and assist,” he said.

“Having a bit of dedicated (police) time to spend in a school setting – I don't see any harm in that provided it’s done in a matter that's supportive of what the school is doing.” 

The notion of having one full-time police member in a school with ‘at risk’ challenges for a two-year trial period did not sit as comfortably with the educator.

“No doubt some school communities are going to feel very uncomfortable with that - the process of identifying who those schools would be and how they identify them become really important,” Mr Pearce said. 

“Parents or the community may develop a perception that particular schools are unsafe places  – or a police presence is required – because that’s not the case, schools are safe places.”

The government’s protective school package will establish a new operations centre later this year, where principals making reports will get additional expert advice and support on how to respond to any incidents and fast-tracked access to additional social workers and behavioural experts and psychologists. 

Support staff will also get new training in specialised behavioural assessment to help manage certain students with challenging behaviours.