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Victoria Police Chief Commissioner Shane Patton has made a wide-ranging and profound apology on behalf of the force for its role in carrying out harmful policies against Indigenous people in the state.
Patton appeared before the Yoorrook Justice Commission on Monday where he began his witness testimony with a statement acknowledging the role of police in past and ongoing injustices towards First Peoples in Victoria.
Victoria Police Chief Commissioner Shane Patton.Credit: Wayne Taylor
The mea culpa at the truth-telling inquiry included the chief commissioner accepting the police uniform is a symbol of fear for First Nations peoples in the state.
He also apologised for police involvement in the forced removal of Aboriginal children from their families, and the enforcement of other historic injustices and harmful legislative policies.
Patton said he was sorry for the role police played in contributing to the toll of Indigenous deaths in custody, for other harms caused by enforcing punitive changes to the state’s bail laws in 2018, and the informal practice of racial profiling in policing.
The chief commissioner made a renewed commitment to First Peoples in the state on behalf of Victoria Police to eliminate bias and racism from within its ranks.
The truth-telling commission – the first of its kind in Australia’s history – is examining the injustices experienced by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in Victoria’s child protection and criminal justice systems. In public hearings held in March and December, the inquiry heard that the child protection system acts as a conduit, funnelling First Peoples into the state’s youth justice and criminal justice systems.
The latest hearings, involving witnesses from key government departments, will provide evidence to inform a “critical issues report” due in August. The report will include recommendations to government for reforming both the systems, and ultimately guide the negotiations of the First Peoples’ Assembly of Victoria for a statewide treaty.
In a broad submission from government, Premier Daniel Andrews said it was a “source of great shame” that First Peoples continue to be over-represented in the criminal justice and child protection systems.
“The Victorian government has reflected on the discrimination and mistreatment that First Nations peoples can often endure in the criminal justice and child protection systems. These injustices are not confined to history – they persist to this day,” Andrews said in a letter heading up the government’s written submission.
Data in the submission revealed the extent that First Peoples are over-represented in the criminal justice system.
Indigenous men and women in Victoria continue to experience high levels of incarceration, with Aboriginal men 15 times more likely than non-Indigenous men to be imprisoned and Aboriginal women 22 times more likely to be incarcerated than non-Indigenous women.
Between 2010 and 2020, the number of First Nations people imprisoned in Victoria increased by 148 per cent.
The submission also acknowledged that amendments to the state’s Bail Act in 2018 also disproportionately affected First Nations people.
Between 2009-10 and 2019-20, there was a 560 per cent increase in First Peoples entering prisons unsentenced, the submission said.
The commission is also due to hear on Monday from Police Minister Anthony Carbines.
More to come.
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