Flemington & Kensington Community Legal Centre

Racial Profiling

 Racial Profiling

Racial Profiling occurs when police stop, question, target or search a person because of their race. Reports from the Flemington community indicate that people are being targeted by police because of their race or (suspected) religious backgrounds.

The Victorian Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities Act 2006 makes it unlawful for a person to be treated differently from others on the basis of their race, religion or other characteristic.

Section 8 of the Charter of Human Rights

A person's ethnicity does not make it more or less likely that they have committed or are likely to commit an offence. This site contains reports of racial profiling and the impact of racialised policing that effects people from Australia and around the world.   These reports explore the impact of racial profiling on individuals and communities.

US

2009 ACLU report on racial profiling in Louisana

Institute on Race and Poverty - Components of Racial Profiling Legislation
Letter from ACLU in 2009 condemning the practice of racial profiling

Racial Profiling Resource Center Northeastern University USA

2005 ACLU Racial Profiling Report

 The Black Agenda Report

US Racial Profiling Resources

 2010 comment on stop & search in New York

 UK

The Stephen Lawrence Inquiry 1999
2006 UK Report Just Justice - black young people's experience of the youth justice system

Canada

Learning from race data - The Star News report

Ontario Human Rights Commission - Paying the Price, the Human Costs of Racial Profiling

 Racial Profiling Hotline in Montreal

Europe

Report by the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs to the European Parliament 2009

 
Ethnic Profiling in Europe - Open Justice Report 2009

Australia

Rights of Passage Report by the Victorian Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission

Green Left Weekly Article on Justice for Africans

Institutional Racism in Australia - A case study on policing

 Southern Ethnic Advisory & Advocacy Council Submission to the Victorian Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission 2008

Moonee Valley City Council Report 2006

Article on corruption theory and Indigenous communities 2008

Victoria Police - racism claim - Indigenous  2010

 2010 - "Boys you want to give me some action" police violence and racism in the Braybrook, Flemington & Dandenong regions.

 Interview with Daniel Haile-Michel Done by Law 20 March 2010

 

Solutions/Strategies

Stop and search receipting and data collection and reporting (Recommendation 61 of the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry 1999)

Anti-racial profiling legislation

Public awareness

Hotlines/Local Reports

Education of Police officers on impacts

Independent investigation of complaints involving allegations of racial or religious discrimination/profiling

Accountability for police who engage in racism/racial profiling through dismissal and disciplinary action.

Bringing civil litigation/discrimination cases

Amendment to the Equal Opportunity Act to make it unlawful for police to discriminate against suspects/alleged suspects

Anti-racism training within police agencies

police to target crimes involving racism/racial hatred

ongoing integrity testing of officers about attitudes

 Pro-active recruitment of women and minority racial, religious, abled and glbti communities (but see p 71 Prenzler, Tim, 2009 and Sherene Razack's Dark Threats and White Knights: The Somalia Affair, Peacekeeping and the New Imperialism (University of Toronto Press,  2004) for an account of how racist cultures are not solved by recruitment of non-white people into them.