The new positions are included among 13 additional police officers for the area, which will be announced later today.

The Bendigo police service area will also receive six general duties police and Macedon police service area will receive one. The final position will be an additional divisional highway patrol officer. Deployment of the new officers is expected to start in May and take up to 12 months.

The focus on better equipping Victoria police officers to deal with family violence includes the opening of a purpose-built $11.5 million Centre of Learning for Family Violence facility in Glen Waverley. The centre was one of Victoria police's main priorities in the wake of the Royal Commission into Family Violence, which recommended that a learning centre with external academic governance be established to improve family violence education within the service.

Its remit has included training for body-worn cameras and supporting the trialling of body-worn cameras to record statements at family violence incident scenes.

Other police and court news

A Bill to allow these reports to be used by victims as their evidence-in-chief is being developed. The trials are expected to be implemented in Ballarat and Epping from July 31 this year.

Acting Assistant Commissioner Paul Naylor said the Bendigo and Macedon Ranges communities would greatly benefit from the additional resources.

"These new officers will be out in the community working hard to prevent crime, lock up offenders and keep everyone safe," said Assistant Commioner Naylor. "We know the importance of having a visible police presence and this boost to our numbers will help us keep our officers mobile and responding to incidents in the areas where they are most needed.

Last year Western Region Division 5 received an additional ten police as part of the deployment announcement. Victoria Police continue to work to recruit, train and deploy more than 3000 additional officers by April 2022.

Member for Bendigo East, Jacinta Allan, said the ten police deployed last year were "already making a difference, focussing on the harm family violence does in our community". Member for Bendigo West, Maree Edwards. said "the 13 new police officers ... will further support our local police's efforts to drive down crime".

Both welcomed the opening of the Centre of Learning for Family Violence to help ensure more police officers were effective in responding to family violence

An additional 709 police officers and 25 Protective Services Officers (PSOs) will be announced today for areas around Victoria.

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