Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews has vowed to give police all the powers and resources they need to tackle youth crime, amid growing concerns about gangs in Melbourne.

Returning to work after a week off, Mr Andrews said Melbourne remained a safe city, but there was no excuse for violent or criminal behaviour.

"I will not cop people fronting up and saying, 'Oh well I don't have a job' or 'I've had difficulty in my life, therefore I had to behave this way'," Mr Andrews said.

"No, that is not on.

"We have seen some very nasty incidents, this is real.

"It is important and that is why we have absolute determination, a focus and a steely resolve to make sure the arrests are made and people feel the full force of the law."

Mr Andrews said he backed the permanent roll-out of a national gangs database to help identify and corral violent teens, and new measures to engage with the African community to help prevent crime.

He had faced criticism for remaining on leave as the issue dominated political and media debate in Victoria, with Coalition MPs at a federal and state level attacking his leadership on law and order.

On Thursday, Mr Andrews lashed out at federal Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton for his suggestion Melburnians were too scared to go to restaurants at night.

"I think Mr Dutton's comments were designed to get a rise out of people," Mr Andrews said.

"I don't know how often he spends time in Melbourne."

Federal frontbencher Kelly O'Dwyer, who represents Higgins in Melbourne's inner south-east, said Mr Andrews should back Opposition Leader Matthew Guy's law-and-order policies.

"Daniel Andrews needs to stop being a menace to Victoria and needs to start being a premier of Victoria," she said.

African-Australians feeling the backlash

Mr Andrews said some of the language being used in the debate was fuelling racism.

"I think it is always dangerous to look at the actions of a small number of people and then make sweeping comments to try and draw conclusions across a whole group," Mr Andrews said.

South Sudanese Melburnian Ayen told the ABC's AM program people had started to look at her differently following the intense media attention on young Africans.

"[On] trains, you know, people will be staring at you and it hurts," she said.

Her friend, who wanted to be known as Susan, said she feared for her teenage daughter and all African children in the current environment.

She said it was difficult for mothers from South Sudan to raise children without the support of family.

"Mothers … might also have their sisters' children and perhaps a neighbour's child because, as you know, the Sudanese civil war dragged on for 60 years or so," she said.

"You've got a mum taking care of nine, 10 kids and it is very difficult to make ends meet."

Refugee families 'isolated' on city fringe

Megan Reinwald from the Sudanese Australian Integrated Learning program said many Sudanese refugees chosen to settle in Australia were from single-parent families.

She said those who could not read or write English faced greater challenges.

"They can't necessarily monitor their kids' internet use or they don't know the full extent of the internet," said Ms Reinwald, whose program provides free English tutoring to Sudanese families.

"But also, everything from reading notices if one of their children might have skipped school and a letter is sent home — if they can't read that, or if they wouldn't even know there would be a procedure where the principal sends a letter home.

"So, it's everyday stuff."

Ms Reinwald says newer refugees were often settled in suburbs where they could not access services like after-school care, team sports and homework camps.

"For the families that arrived in 2000 and 2001, they might have been all in central locations like inner Footscray and inner Dandenong, so it would have been much easier," she said.

"But newer arrivals today are increasingly spread out in newer suburbs, suburbs that are only just being developed like Tarneit, Truganina and Wyndham Vale.

"So families can be quite isolated if that's where their government housing is."

Meanwhile, a tongue-in-cheek response to the controversy has taken off on social media, with members of Melbourne's African-Australian communities posting images using the hashtag #AfricanGangs to poke fun at some elements of the debate.

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