Do Australian police engage in racial profiling? A method for identifying racial profiling in the absence of police data

Abstract

ABSTRACT Expanding on a technique developed by Epp, C. R., Maynard-Moody, S., & Haider-Markel, D. (2014). Pulled over: How police stops define race and citizenship, this study develops a methodology for identifying racial profiling from the descriptions of police stops obtained from a survey of members of the public. The analysis subjects 981 accounts of police stops in Victoria described in a survey conducted in 2018–2019 to a ‘threshold’ analysis followed by a multinomial regression controlling for age, gender, LGBITQ status and disability. The results provide strong evidence that race is associated with decision-making by police in Victoria about who to subject to high discretion stops and unjustified post-stop conduct and a consistent pattern of unjustified law enforcement attention on and treatment of racialised compared with white people. This is particularly apparent for Aboriginal, African, Pasifika and Middle-Eastern/Muslim appearing people. The unjustified nature of this policing provides evidence that it is racial appearance, not crime, that is triggering police attention and subsequent behaviour.