The reasonable grounds search hit rate for people perceived to be Pacific Islander increased in 2019 (Figure 3). As changes in police data suggests changes in policing practices (either operational or administrative), understanding what occurred requires research beyond the data we currently have.

In 2022, for the first time, police records separated people perceived to be Middle-Eastern from people perceived to be African. Unfortunately, Victoria Police still combine 'Middle-Eastern' with Mediterranean which may dilute the findings. Despite these caveats, If the data can be relied on, both groups continue to experience low hit rate levels - indicative of racial profiling. It is notable that the hit rate for people perceived to be African increases dramatically in 2023 from a base of around 10-12% to about 15.4% (Figure 3). This may reflect an improvement in the reasonableness of policing of people perceived to be African. Alternatively, it may reflect a change in police reporting practices. Further research is required. The present data reveals that people police perceive to be African and Middle-Eastern are both unreasonably and disproportionately searched. The evidence from multiple sources provides clear evidence of widespread, ongoing racial profiling against these groups.

In Victoria, Criminal Investigation Units, Crime, Divisional Response Units and Uniform branches are making finds in less that 1 in 5 searches. For some units, less than 1 in 7 searches are resulting in a find. This indicates that these operations are likely to be performing unlawful searches (i.e. searches without reasonable grounds.)

Police hit rates in Australia are disturbingly poor by international standards: (See comparative hit rate analysis). The low Australian hit rate suggests that police in Australia are not subjected to the same accountability measures (external review, court challenges including exclusion of evidence) as comparable international jurisdictions (UK, Canada, US). Alternatively it could suggest that police in other jurisdictions are better at 'managing’ their data. International studies show that it is quite possible for police to improve their reasonable grounds search rates to achieving a ‘find’ in at least 1 in 2 searches.

A preliminary analysis of police search data from 2023 reveals that the police in Victoria disproportionately search Aboriginal people, and people they perceive to be African, Middle Eastern and Pacific Islander. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders are eleven times more likely to be searched than White people, people perceived to be African people are eight times more likely to searched than White people, people perceived to be Middle-Eastern are five times more likely to be searched than White people and people perceived to be Pacific Islanders are four times more likely to be searched than White people. This is evidence of systematic over-policing of these communities. Because the overall hit rates are low for all searches, there is a question about their legality. In addition, the evidence of particular regional and operational over-representation of police searches for different racialised communities raises questions. For example in 2023 some regional uniform branches appear to be unjustifiably focused on Indigenous communities and have very low hit rates. (See the hit rate analysis page.) Furthermore it appears that Merri-bek police units are disproportionately focussed on people they perceive to be Middle-Eastern. There are also crime squads that appear almost exclusively targeted at people perceived to be Pacific Islander and people perceived to be Asian. This brings sharply into question Victoria Police’s claims in 2015 to have conducted significant work to ensure police do not racially profile in any form.

While, overall, Victoria Police search people they perceive to be Asian at lower rates than White people, when they do search people they perceive to be Asian, they are less likely to find contraband than when they search White people. This means that when police search Asian people they are more likely to do so without reasonable grounds. There is evidence that some police operations including the Major Drug Squad and Richmond Uniform are targeted at people perceived to be Asian. This indicates that while, overall people police perceive as Asian are not being over-policed in so far as the police search data reveals, there are individual units that unreasonably target them. This means that racial profiling against Asian-Victorians continues to be a concern in searches despite their under-representation in the overall data. We are aware of concerns raised by service providers about other ways in which Asian-Victorians may experience racial profiling such as through under-policing where they are victims of crime or in missing person’s reports and through their mis-identification as perpetrators of family violence. Victoria Police must expand the data it collects and publicly releases to ensure it is possible to monitor racial profiling in all these activities.

Like Asian Victorians, the present data reveals that people who the police perceive are from the Indian sub-continent are more likely to be subject to an unreasonable (unlawful) search than White people, but are less likely to be searched overall than white people. In 2009, Indian students raised concerns about the police blaming them for being victims of crime. Further research is required to understand how police are responding currently to their crime reports.

In 2022 and 2023 Victoria Police engaged in a massive 15 fold increase in searches where a Firearms Protection Order was in place. These searches do not require reasonable grounds. Consistent with an absence of threshold for these searches, in 2022 the hit rate for these searches was 8.8% while in 2023 it was 9.8%. The absence of a reasonable grounds threshold for these searches leaves them wide open for abuse. This is particularly the case when it is the police themselves who determine who should be on a Firearms Protection Order. Furthermore, police can make these orders if the police don’t like a person's behaviour or the people a person associates with. It appears these threshold-less search powers may be starting to be used in place of searches that require reasonable grounds. In 2023, the hit rate Disproportionality Ratio ('DR') for Firearms Protection Order searches (that is, the hit rate of the racialised group compared to White people) was as follows: people perceived to be African (DR: 0.89, hit rate: 9.8%), Asian (DR: 1.24, hit rate :13.6%), Middle-Eastern (DR: 0.73, hit rate 8%), Pacific Islander (DR: 0.79, hit rate 8.7%), Aboriginal/TS (DR: 1.06, hit rate: 11.7%) and White (DR: 1, hit rate: 11%). While these searches don’t require police to have reasonable grounds to suspect a person has a firearm, the disproportionate find ratios indicate these searches are being used less reasonably than White people on people perceived to be African, Middle-Eastern and Pacific Islander.

Victoria Police members do not create ethnic appearance records for vehicle only searches. Yet accounts from individuals indicate that these searches are just as likely to be as biased as personal searches and that records ought to be collected. Indeed, the term racial profiling arose out of 'driving while black' cases first reported by The Los Angeles Times in 1986. It is critically important that ethnicity data is collected in all driving cases.

In addition to vehicle only searches, police must be required to collect ethnic appearance data in relation to all stop and question activities, deaths in custody, arrest, bail, caution, missing person notifications, family violence calls, family violence arrests and complaints. The Met Police in London have just agreed to collect data on all traffic stops and subject them to external monitoring.

While from 2022, Victoria Police is separating people they perceive to be African from people they perceive to be Middle Eastern, ‘Middle Eastern’ continues to include people perceived to be Mediterranean in the Middle Eastern category. (How is ethnicity classified by Victoria Police?) These groups should be separated to track the racial profiling of non-white people of Middle-Eastern background.

The Census should record people’s ethnicity in order for systemic racism to be accurately tracked in Australia. While some people will have multiple ethnicities, rather than double counting them, for the purpose of investigating the effect of racial appearance on police behaviour, we need to know the most 'minoritised' of those ethnicities. This will provide clearer answers to the question “which institutions in Australia engage in systemic racism?” The present analysis provides a preliminary indication, consistent with other data sources, that Victorian police engage in systematic racism including racial profiling against a variety of racialised groups.

This Project is an experiment. It is an intervention, intending to create transparency in reaction to long standing government failures to hold the police to account and monitor racial profiling. However, the public release of data through this Project may have a number of unintended consequences. Firstly, it may result in Victoria Police attempting to deny future data releases. It may also result in Victoria Police denying the preliminary findings their data currently suggests. Alternatively, it may result in Victoria Police putting more effort into ‘managing the measures’ of racial profiling. Ideally, publicly releasing this data will put pressure on Victoria Police to improve the thoroughness and accuracy of its data collection practices, improve the reasonableness of its searches and to reduce its targeting of particular communities. However this will require independent scrutiny and external review to ensure that the data reflects what is actually happening, and does not simply represent what Victoria Police want the public to see. Victoria does not currently have independent monitoring and external review of police stop, question, search data or other every day practices. This is a critical issue for the government to address. Further independent research including a second properly funded survey of the public’s experience of policing in Victoria, under the guidance of impacted communities, is critically important in these circumstances.

The data available through this Project covers a far wider ranger of topics that described on this website. For example, in 2017 and 2018 the data reveals that about 83.5% of Victoria Police searches are recorded as being performed under the authority of section 82 Drugs Poisons and Controlled Substances Act 1981. This suggests that decriminalisation of drug possession could dramatically reduce the use of police search powers.