And when you finally decide to change course, it takes an age for your vessel to respond.

Police work on five-year projections and while they are trained to respond quickly to natural emergencies, they can be slow to recognise problems that should be staring them in the face.

When Melbourne's Underbelly war broke out, the immediate response was plainly inadequate with each gangland killing treated in isolation. It was only when homicide Detective Senior Sergeant Phil Swindells saw there was one suspect in three cases that the Purana taskforce was set up.

If police had acted earlier on a group of violent crooks known as the Sunshine Crew, it is entirely possible there would not have been an underworld war at all (which would have robbed this columnist of the opportunity to co-write a series of riveting "shot-'em-in-the-guts" Underbelly books).

For years senior police claimed Outlaw Motorcycle Gang members were just misunderstood middle-aged gentlemen with a shared allergy to deodorant. While the rest of Australia's law enforcement community treated OMCGs as organised crime, Victoria put out the red carpet to the point where gang bosses referred to Melbourne as "Switzerland", for it was neutral and safe. So welcoming were we, it seemed only a matter of time before former Bandido hardman Toby Mitchell was appointed Moomba Monarch and allowed to parade down Swanston Street on a brand new Harley.

This only changed in 2011 when police set up the Echo taskforce to tackle bikie crime. Its success over the past six years has been remarkable but belated.

While bikies and gangsters are serious problems that require a serious police response, it has been the emergence of young, relatively unsophisticated street gangs that create community fear and electoral unrest.

In next year's election, a few hundred street gangs members (who wear their pants just under their hips) may be more influential than Melbourne Club members (who wear their pants just under their armpits).

The police response (at least initially) was pathetic, denying for years that gangs even existed. This was for two basic reasons:

1) The failure to act was based on broad statistics that failed to identify what the public wanted (home invasions and carjackings are not big volume crimes).

2) Police were frightened that by identifying ethnic-based gangs they would be branded as racist.

How police treat crime trends is based on a New York model called Compstat (comparison of statistics - geddit?), which is designed to identify crime spikes and geographic hotspots.

But what district police managers say is that too often it prioritises high volume crimes such as theft from vehicles at the expense of lower volume but more traumatic offences.

This led to police failing to identify and target street gangs that were becoming increasingly bold and violent. It also meant many offences, including home invasions, did not reach the level required for the Crime Department to take the lead, meaning they were left with overworked local police.

The other point was geographic. Once street gangs stuck to their own patch and members were known by local police. Now they move from their own suburb to commit crimes in other areas, creating difficulties for regional-based police.

Traditionally street gangs were just that, which meant police knew where to find them - at designated streets, shopping centres or railway stations.

But now they communicate via social media, bragging of their exploits, organising meetings, recruiting fresh troops and taunting enemies. It is called networked gangs, where people who have no personal relationship communicate online and only meet to commit crimes. More than 10 years ago we had a taste of what was to come when online taunting over a girl led to a 100-strong brawl in the Flagstaff Gardens that resulted in one man having an arm severed.

Social media is now so important in anti-social behaviour that one gang targeted a computer buff, bashed him and then demanded he build them a web page.

Even though street police saw the problem, they often refused to target ethnic gangs fearing they would not be backed by their bosses and slammed as racist.

In a 2014 thesis based on interviews with 43 serving police, Detective Superintendent Pat Boyle found, "Some African youth regularly ... produced the racism card when it suited them, particularly on arrest." He found they would complain about individual police to have them moved.

"They would make that known on the street and new police officers were singled out, as it became part of their game to taunt them by taking photos of them whilst seated in their vehicles, ['Smile Pig']".

Finally last year senior police acknowledged it was a statewide problem and following last year's Moomba riots established Operation Cosmas that resulted in 460 arrests in six months.

And now police are launching a 30-strong gang crime squad that will be split into three crews and work with regional crime squads. It will sit within the Echo taskforce and will concentrate on youth crime, gangs and the growing gun culture embraced by many young offenders.

So what do we know about the gangs of Victoria?

The Boyle report found they are in Broadmeadows, Flemington, Sunshine, Footscray, Camberwell, Caulfield, Springvale, Richmond, Reservoir, Ringwood, St Albans, Werribee, Keilor, Carlton, Robinvale, and Mildura. The ethnic mix is Middle Eastern, Asian, African, Maori and Pacific Islander with the Middle Eastern and African gangs the most anti police.

But it is the Apex gang (named after a Dandenong street) that has drawn the most attention. Deputy Commissioner Shane Patton told a federal parliamentary committee on immigration that its original members were Sudanese and Pacific Islanders and grew to around 130 (which included many Australian-born recruits).

Patton told the committee that police had jailed the leaders and Apex was now, "Pretty much a nonentity in terms of a gang."

Deputy Commissioner Shane Patton in the studio with Tony Jones.

Even if Apex is to crime what cassettes are to music, youth gangs remain a source of public unease. One of the reasons is they don't follow traditional offending patterns of starting small and building to more serious crimes.

Now police are finding teenagers with no criminal histories committing vicious assaults, ram raids, carjackings or violent home invasions. This means all the early intervention and diversion tactics used with junior offenders simply don't work.

Police also see that during robberies the gangs use unnecessary violence, often coming back for a second assault after the victim has complied. The Boyle report found gangs "concentrated on soft targets due to age, stature and location". Many investigators believe the attacks are more to do with power than profit, with the offenders taking near valueless "trophy" items such as outdated mobile phones. One police officer speculated, "The theft is a by-product, they want to do the assault."

In many home invasions the gangs make a point of terrorising and humiliating the victims - as if punishing them for having a life they feel is out of their reach. And many victims feel so violated they have felt forced to sell their homes.

Naturally the public wants an uncompromising and tough police response but this can push the disaffected into joining the gangs. Certainly repeat, violent offenders need to be dealt with severely but police say a singular law enforcement response is doomed to fail.

According to Bob Haldane's excellent history of the Victoria Police, The People's Force, in the 1960s then chief commissioner Rupert Arnold ordered a blitz on youth behaviour, using 1000 police, "To stamp out unseemly conduct, particularly in the vicinity of dance halls." The result was a disconnect between police and young people.

Boyle found the average age of male street gang members is between 12 and 16, the oldest 38, with kids as young as 10 on the periphery. This is the model. Young men from violent backgrounds find comfort with their peers and turn to crime. Usually such gangs have a shelf life of around five years, such as Vietnamese gangs that broke up long ago when members integrated.

But with Pacific Island and Maori gangs the numbers are constantly being replenished by new arrivals. Police say parents, concerned their sons are under the influence of local criminals, are sending them to live with relatives in Australia. They then link with local ethnic-based crime groups. Because of their physical size, bikie gangs are recruiting them as muscle.

There are reports that some of the the older African offenders are being used as debt collectors while Middle Eastern crime groups have recruited under-age soldiers to steal luxury cars on order and commit ram raids.

There are much bigger crime problems in Victoria than ethnic gangs, but policing is as much about perception as reality and the reality is the political party that successfully sells itself as the one to rein back violence will be popping the champagne corks next election night.

Just don't drive your car to the victory party. It might not be there when you get back.