The New South Wales law enforcement watchdog will consider investigating a “hidden” blacklist used by the state’s police force to target children as young as 10 for monitoring despite them not having committed any crime.
Details of the the secretive intelligence-gathering tool were revealed on Wednesday in a joint study by lawyers from the Public Interest Advocacy Centre and the University of New South Wales, which found it was used to target children as young as 10, was overwhelmingly aimed at Aboriginal people, and resulted in “oppressive policing”.
So continual harrassment of minors, making it plain we expect the worst of you, that you're just going to turn to crime, it's inevitable, we don't trust you, because you're a wrong-un'... Yeah, that seems a perfect way to create a well-adjusted, happy citizen. I wonder if they've ever heard the phrase "Self-fulfilling prophecy"? Or read the early history of Ned Kelly?In one case, a 16-year-old who the report called Dean with a history of mostly minor graffiti-related offences, was stopped and searched 23 times in 10 months.
Police records justifying the searches included that he was wearing Nautica brand clothing, and that people who wear Nautica “are known to commit criminal damage”.
In another, what the author’s call “constant police harassment” of three siblings of Aboriginal heritage, led to one of the brothers appearing at the local police station “asking to be tasered and shot by police, asking ‘Why won’t you leave my family alone?’.”
In a third case, a 14-year-old from a regional NSW town who the report called Kieran, was stopped 28 times. During one search police found a small amount of cannabis in his underpants and he was charged with possession.
I particularly liked this:
When someone goes all Secret Squirrel on the critieria, it generally means that if we knew, we would laugh at them.But police wont reveal what criteria results in someone being placed on an STMP, and sample data from 10 Local Area Commands revealed the program “disproportionately targets” young people and Indigenous Australians.
On a practical level, if they really believe that these people on the list pose a real and significant risk of turning criminal, maybe some kind of constructive intervention program would be in order?
