Victoria’s top cop has formally apologised for the state police force’s racist treatment of Aboriginal families over generations.
Chief Commissioner Shane Patton appeared before the Yoorrook Justice Commission, where he apologised for Victoria Police’s actions causing or contributing to trauma experienced Aboriginal families in the state.
“I know Victoria Police has caused harm in the past and unfortunately, continues to do so in the present,” he told the state’s first formal truth-telling inquiry on Monday.
“As an organisation, we continue to make necessary changes and improvement and it is a firm requirement of mine that we will continually strive to do better.”
Mr Patton said he doesn’t believe the force is intentionally racist, but policing of Aboriginal people is influenced by systemic or structural racism.
“As a result of systemic racism, racist attitudes and discriminatory actions of police have gone undetected, unchecked, unpunished or without appropriate sanctions and have caused significant harm across generations of Aboriginal families,” he said.
A minute silence was observed after the apology.
“Your apology must bring real change,” Yoorrook chair Eleanor Bourke said.
Yoorrook commissioners have condemned Indigenous people’s over-representation in Victoria’s justice system throughout the inquiry.
Attorney-General Jaclyn Symes appeared before the probe on Friday, telling commissioners structural racism with colonial roots persisted.
“It is an unacceptable reality that the number of Aboriginal people charged by police, held on remand, sentenced to custodial settings and not released on parole has steadily increased,” she said in a witness statement.
The attorney-general acknowledged police turned a blind eye to public drunkenness among non-Indigenous people, including during events such as the Melbourne Cup.
There was a long road ahead to fully restore confidence in Victoria’s police oversight system, Ms Symes said.
The inquiry has previously raised major concerns about police oversight processes, with police accountability expert Tamar Hopkins last week saying there was “something inherently impossible about having the police investigating themselves”.
She researched whether Victoria Police racially profiled people in 2018/2019 and found it was an ongoing issue.
A police policy banning racial profiling was “absolutely ineffective” in dealing with the problem and unjustified police power was disproportionately being used against racialised and Indigenous people, Dr Hopkins said.
Yoorrook is the first formal truth-telling inquiry into past and ongoing injustices against First Nations people in Victoria, as part of the state’s treaty process.
Police Minister Anthony Carbines will appear before the commission later on Monday.
– AAP
