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 and subsequent research has indicated 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.
Australia
Police reject move for search receipts - 20 September 2011
Proposal for a new Stop and Search receipting policy
Victoria Police - racism claim - Indigenous (2010)
Interview with Daniel Haile-Michel Done by Law (20 March 2010)
Rights of Passage Report by the Victorian Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission
Rights of Passage Two Years On: 2010
Green Left Weekly Article on Justice for Africans
Institutional Racism in Australia - A case study on policing
Article on corruption theory and Indigenous communities (2008)
Moonee Valley City Council Report (2006)
Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody (1991)
United States
Floyd v NYPD Court Order September 2011
2010 comment on stop & search in New York
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
United Kingdom
Stop and Search Rights Card 2011
Stop and Search in a Global Context - workshop 2011
UN Committee on the Elimination of All forms of racism - UK 2011 (see paragraph 18)
The Stephen Lawrence Inquiry 1999
Dr Miranda Fricker on the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry and testimonial injustice
2006 UK Report Just Justice - black young people's experience of the youth justice system
Canada
Ottawa Police Service Racial Profiling policy 2011 (result of litigation settlement)
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
Report of the Aboriginal Justice Inquiry, Manitoba, Canada
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
French Minority Profiling Report 2009
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.
