Census Benchmarking - Assumption 2
This analysis assumes that police will record people who have Mediterranean ancestry as being ‘Caucasian’ (White). Consequently it separates people of Middle-Eastern ancestry from European ancestries.
This analysis continues to assume (like Census Benchmarking Assumption 1. ):
a) that people who claim ‘Australian’ ancestry are visually white;
b) that ancestry as recorded on the census is an reasonable estimate of total population ancestry;
c) that missing ethnic appearance data is consistently spread across ethnic appearance groups.
Using Assumption 2 (that the police are treating all Europeans as ‘White’) we find that people who are percieved to be Middle-Eastern are 5 times more likely to be searched than White people. We suggest that this assumption produces more accurate results for people who appear to be Middle-Eastern than Assumption 1. This is because where these two groups are separated in other data sources (such as by NSW Police), people who are perceived to be Middle-Eastern are more likely to be searched than people who are perceived to be Mediterranean. We recommend that Victoria Police separate the Middle-Eastern from Mediterranean categories in their data. Victoria Police could either include Mediterranean as a separate category or absorb it into the Caucasian (White) category.
The data used to inform Assumption 2 can be accessed here.