A NUMBER of AFL captains have come together to launch a new campaign tackling street violence.

The initiative was announced on Thursday morning by Hawthorn captain Sam Mitchell, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, AFLPA CEO Matt Finnis and Federal Minister for Sport and Youth Affairs Kate Ellis.

Mitchell said the rise of street violence in Melbourne had reached scary new levels and it had to be urgently addressed.

“A couple of years ago if I was at a pub or a club I would feel reasonably safe getting out and going for a bit of a walk no matter what time it was,” Mitchell said.

“Now I wouldn’t feel all that safe because there are too many stories going round of innocent bystanders getting into trouble on the city streets. It is something AFL players and captains can do something about.”

The Hawthorn captain said excessive alcohol consumption was one of the biggest problems facing modern society.

“Alcohol is the start of the other problems. You don’t start off on drugs, most people who end up with drug problems have started with an alcohol problem. If you can get it with the source we will be much better equipped to handle it in our communities,” he said.

“I think the attitudes around alcohol need a slight change, not a complete change but the act of going out, writing yourself off and getting yourself in a position where you’re not able to make good decisions - if you are going to be doing that in a public place, not only are you a chance to be a victim of crime but some people are going to be perpetrators as well.”

Mitchell said he hoped that football’s high public profile in Melbourne would be used to good effect to combat alcohol-fuelled violence.

“What happens a lot is that groups of young men would go to the footy and have a few beers. A couple of them would get a little bit rowdy and get themselves into trouble," Mitchell said.

"Hopefully what we can do is get a couple of guys, maybe not even the ones that are getting rowdy, but get them to pull each other up and say ‘that’s enough, we don’t need to start something with that other group’,” he said.

Mitchell said the anti-violence message extended to local football which has recently suffered a problem with aggressive crowds.

“Whether that is at the local footy or some of the parents of junior kids are yelling at umpires. Any violence fuelled by alcohol is something we think we can do something about,” he said.

“It starts with city streets and hopefully that will have a bit of an influence in making our community in general much safer.”