Analysing the Data -
Methodology 2 - Census Benchmarking
In this section we compare the number of the police searches for each racial appearance group by ‘benchmarking’ those numbers against the total populations of those groups as identified in the census to generate a search rate.
Because of ambiguities in Australian census data, the findings presented here are preliminary only. We conduct this analysis to reveal the types of findings that could be possible if ethnicity data in the census was recorded by racial/ethnic appearance (best for this analysis) or by racial/ethnic background or identity (useful as well).
At this point, the Australian Census does not collect ethnicity. Instead, it records ‘ancestry’. However, one of the key ambiguities is that in 2021, 27% of Victorians described themselves as being of ‘Australian’ ancestry. What does this mean? Other than First Nations people, all Australians are immigrants. This 27% of people could be White appearing or appear like any other racial group. This is a critical issue that the census needs to address to enable effective research into systemic racism in Australia. The present study makes an assumption that people of ‘Australian’ ancestry group are white appearing. We make this assumption based on the ‘normalisation’ of whiteness in Australia that results in White people being more likely to consider themselves ‘Australian’ without qualifying this label than other groups (see Stanaway et. al. 2024)
A second key ambiguity is that the census allows people to record up to two ancestries. This means that the number of people of different types of ancestries is 127% greater than the total population in Victoria. To manage this issue we have divided the total number of people with a particular ancestry type by the total responses not the total population to find a percentage in the population figure. This will also generate errors. Because of these accounting errors, we offer these findings as preliminary only.
Racial appearance estimate calculations from the 2021 Census
This estimation has used Table 4. Ancestry by State and Territory to approximate racial appearance category from the 2021 Census.
To estimate the number of people of ‘white appearance’ we have added Australian, New Zealander, and North-West European, Southern and Eastern European, and Jewish categories together. To estimate the number of people of ‘Middle Eastern appearance’ we have added North African and Middle Eastern (excluding peoples of Sudan, South Sudanese and Sudanese categories and Jewish) and including Afghan and Hazara groups. To estimate the number of people of ‘African appearance’ people we have added Sub-Saharan African with Sudanese categories (excluding South Africa). To estimate the number of ‘Pacific Islander appearing people’ we have used the Oceania (excluding New Zealander, Australian Aboriginal and Australian). To estimate the number of Asian people we have added South-East and North-East Asian categories. To estimate the number of people of Aboriginal appearance, we have used the Aboriginal Australian and Torres Strait Islander category. We acknowledge there is much room for error in these estimations and their will be many different opinions on the categorisation process. We are open to suggestions on improvement. For transparency, the excel spreadsheet of these categories is available here.
2.1 Are the Victoria Police search rates of different populations proportionate to their population?
Because many Aboriginal people are not of ‘Aboriginal appearance’ in order to establish the total number of searches of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people by police in 2022 and 2023, we added the people who police perceive to be Aboriginal to people the list of people who were recorded as being of Indigenous Status. Where people are listed as being of Indigenous status and Aboriginal appearance we counted them only once. Indigenous Status is recorded if a person has been arrested and detained by the police and is based on their self-identification. Figure 6 below sets out the search rate for racial appearance groups in Victoria as a proportion of their percent in the overall Victoria population. This means that the numbers disclose the search rate by Victoria Police compared with their percentage in the population. For example 4.1 means that the group is 4.1 times more likely to be searched than if the search rate reflected the groups proportion in the population. The groups included in this analysis are those who collectively experienced at least 200 searches during 2022 and 2023.
Figure 6 provides preliminary evidence that in 2023 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Victorians are approximately 9.9 times more likely to be searched than their proportion in the population would predict. This means they are over-represented in the search data by 9.9 times. People who police perceive to be African are over-represented by 7.0 times. People who police perceive to be Middle-Eastern are 4.1 times more likely to be searched than their proportion in the population, and people who are perceived by police to be Pacific Islanders are 3.4 times more likely to be searched than their proportion in the population. The preliminary evidence is that people perceived to be Asian, Indian and people perceived to be Caucasian are underrepresented in the 2022 and 2023 Victoria Police search data. Tables 3 and 4 below provides the figures used to generate Figure 6.
Figure 7 below compares the search rates of different groups with the search rate of people perceived to be White.
Figure 7 reveals that in 2023, police were 11 times more likely to search an ATSI person than a White person (based on their respective size in the population), they were almost 8 times more likely to search a person they perceived to be African than a person they perceived to be White, were almost 5 times more likely to search a person they perceived to be Middle-Eastern and were almost 4 times more likely to search a person they perceived to be Pacific Islander than a person they perceived to be White. They were less likely to search people they perceived to be Asian or as being from or having ancestors from the Indian sub-continent than White people. The data to create this Figure was drawn from Tables 3 and 4 below.
Discussion
This data reveals that people police perceive to be Aboriginal, African, Middle Eastern and Pacific Islander are more likely to be subjected to a search without warrant than is expected from their respective proportions in the population. In particular people police perceive to be Aboriginal and people police perceive to be African are searched at far higher frequencies than expected. This disproportionality is indicative of systemic racism against these populations. When compared with people percieved to be white people, people perceived to be Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders are 11 times more likely to be searched than white people, people police perceive to be African are 8 times more likely to searched, people the police perceive to be Middle-Eastern are 5 times more likely to be searched and people the police perceive to be Pacific Islanders are 4 times more likely to be searched than people percieved to be Caucasian. People perceived to be Asian or from the Indian sub-continent are less likely to be searched than people police perceive to be Caucasian.
The search data from Victoria Police reveals systemic racism toward (that is the disproportionate over-policing of) all non-white groups, except Asians and Indians.