The "pop-up" police station was installed at a Tarneit shopping centre on Sunday as police conceded that some residents in the area were worried about their safety.

On the other side of the city, a group of far-right activists held their own meeting to muster willing members to "take a stand on the streets" in response to Melbourne's "gang crisis".

A string of violent incidents has generated significant angst over the summer months, particularly about whether the city is in the midst of a "gang crisis" involving offenders from African backgrounds.

The police efforts to engage the community on Sunday came as the war of words continued between the federal and state government over how to deal with youth crime.

Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton has spoken out regularly in the past month about youth crime in Victoria, attacking the judiciary for handing out soft sentences and at one point saying Melburnians were too scared to go out for dinner.

The minister's comments drew a terse response from Premier Daniel Andrews on Sunday.

"He was trying to be as controversial as he could be and I don't think that's necessarily going to change any time soon," Mr Andrews said.

"Just running this ultra controversial commentary, usually based on ignorance and a misunderstanding of things and with no factual basis, that doesn't achieve much at all."

Mr Andrews said the best thing Mr Dutton could do to help reduce youth crime would be to fund a national criminal intelligence framework, which would help law enforcement agencies to share information between states.

The database would have been used by police to identify those involved in a recent wild brawl on the St Kilda foreshore and the trashing of a house in Werribee.

The offenders have been linked to a group from Sydney in Melbourne as part of a basketball tournament.

"When we get dozens or more young kids playing up from Sydney who are here in Melbourne, if we've got a database we'd know about those kids and what their history is, what their status is," Mr Andrews said.

There could also be further restrictions on the courts sentencing offenders to community corrections orders instead of jail time, the Premier said.

The state government passed legislation last year banning corrections orders for 10 of the most serious crimes.

At the pop-up police station in Tarneit, Acting Superintendent Adrian Healy said police were listening to the community, which was concerned about youth crime in the area.

"We know that there is an over-representation of crime by South Sudanese members, it's a very small group," he said.

"We want to provide reassurance to the community."

South Sudanese community leader Manyang Koch said more funding was needed to boost support services to ensure that young offenders could be rehabilitated rather than going on to commit more-serious crimes.

"Putting them in jail is not helping them," he said.

"When you lock them up they think there is no other way, they have no hope."

Mr Koch also said use of the word "gang" by the media and politicians to describe the groups was not accurate.

"From a cultural perspective, the South Sudanese, we move in a large number, 15 or 20 of them. From an Australian perspective they are called gang," he said.

"Of course this is perceived negatively. These young people are called 'gang', we are not denying there are individuals committing some serious crimes."

In Melbourne's south-east, members of the far-right groups True Blue Crew and United Patriots Front met to address the perceived crime problem.

UPF leader Blair Cottrell said the meeting had discussed the possibility of making citizen's arrests to tackle crime.

"We just want to ... understand what we can do legally to apprehend someone breaking the law," he said.

Mr Cottrell said up to 60 people had attended the meeting.

TBC member Kane Miller said the group had received "hundreds" of responses to their Facebook post.

Mr Miller said police had been in contact with True Blue Crew about the meeting but had not attended.

"We felt their presence will only hinder what we are trying to do," he said. "We are here to help them."

A police spokesperson said they were aware of the meeting but respected the rights of people to air views on political matters.

They said police were "responding strongly" to recent offending.

"We have increased patrols in affected suburbs and are taking a zero-tolerance approach when crimes are being committed," the spokesperson said.