Discriminatory policing

First Nations people in NSW are unfairly targeted by police, resulting in shamefully disproportionate rates of arrest and imprisonment.

Working in collaboration with First Nations partner organisations, we call out discriminatory police practices that impact Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities and pull them into the criminal legal system.

Our work exposes and challenges discriminatory policing that results in:

• First Nations people being far more likely to be the targets of ongoing and intimidatory use of police powers, such as searches and surveillance at their homes;
• restrictions on relationships or gatherings between First Nations people, for example, through the misuse of ‘consorting laws’, which make it an offence to spend time with a person named by police; and
• grossly disproportionate numbers of First Nations people in prisons and youth detention centres.

We stand with First Nations peak organisations and advocates to demand First Nations involvement in decision-making to reform policing practices and legal system responses that heavily impact their communities. Without the leadership of First Nations organisations, the NSW Government has little chance of meeting its obligations under the National Agreement on Closing the Gap to reduce the rate at which First Nations people are arrested and imprisoned.