In a searing criticism of police command, Kel Glare, who headed Victoria Police between 1987 and 1992, accused his successors of withdrawing from "most if not all of their crime preventive measures".

"Sadly in my view Victoria Police has lost the plot," Mr Glare said. "I hate criticising an organisation I love but the fact of the matter is it has not dealt adequately with the crime tsunami we are now facing."

Mr Glare - who on Wednesday released a 100-point plan to tackle Victoria's rising crime rate - said it was "an indictment in itself" that the Blue Light Disco program had been wound back.

He railed against a decision more than a decade ago to dump the Police In Schools Program he introduced in 1989, saying modern policing was failing to deter young people from committing crimes in the first instance.

"We know that many of the young people these days because of their background don't get that moral and ethical training at home that is so necessary and the first opportunity to influence those young people is when they start school," he said.

Mr Glare heads a group of 10 former cops and civilians, called the Community Advocacy Alliance. Its recommendations were released on Wednesday in a joint press conference with Mr Guy.

Mr Glare said he did not wish to single out the current Chief Commissioner Graham Ashton, warning the problem had been brewing for some time.

"It is only the current chief that can turn it around, because he's in the chair now but I believe we haven't been well served for some time in terms of appointments of chief commissioners and I make no apologies for saying that."

Mr Guy refused to be drawn on whether he agreed that Victoria Police had "lost the plot".

"My focus is on the support given to Victoria Police by the state government and so from my point of view, the state government is there to support Victoria Police," he said.

Police Minister Lisa Neville defended Mr Ashton's performance in the job and accused the Opposition of trying to undermine him and front line police.

She reiterated the government's promise to spend $2 billion over four years on more frontline and specialist police and other measures such as new technology.

Ms Neville said the government had funded additional police youth workers and there were officers in schools every day.

She said 27,000 young people in Victoria attended a blue light disco in the past financial year.

Mr Glare's plan argued there was an "urgent need" to establish benchmarks for standard response times allocated to jobs according to a "priority hierarchy".

But Police Association Secretary Wayne Gatt said it was more difficult to monitor response times for police than other emergency services. "What's important is making sure that they have the resources on the ground to have the flexibility to respond to critical jobs in the time that the community expects," he said.