The New South Wales police force is facing accusations of an overtly racist culture from two indigenous former officers. They say it's contributing to the record number of First Nations people in custody across the state. The former officers have joined dozens of current and former personnel who have spoken to the ABC as part of a Stateline investigation into the culture at New South Wales Police.
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:00I've been investigating the culture at NSW Police for several months now and spoken to
00:05dozens of officers and quite a few of them mentioned this racist culture within the force,
00:10particularly against Indigenous people.
00:12They spoke about racial profiling and overtly racist slurs that are used as part of normal
00:18business.
00:19Two of the officers who I spoke to have recently left the force and were willing to tell their
00:23stories to me.
00:24One of them couldn't be identified because of her new career, but she has since made
00:29a complaint to the Human Rights Commission about what she witnessed at the police force.
00:34That included racial slurs being used among officers as a way of referring to Indigenous
00:40people, racial profiling as I mentioned, and also one of her fellow officers who was actually
00:45charged with assaulting an Aboriginal woman during an arrest.
00:49Another former officer who spoke to me was Steve Bartholomew.
00:51He has since left the force after a nine-year career.
00:54He is now suing the police force for racial discrimination and neglecting his mental health.
00:59He claims that he experienced racism throughout his entire career, both himself as well as
01:05witnessed it against members of his community.
01:07He says he overheard some concerning conversations between officers, including one where they
01:12referred to essentially shooting Indigenous people.
01:17That's all in the story which is online today, but here's a little bit of what he had to
01:20say to me.
01:21The racial profiling is out of control and that's why I believe incarceration rates are
01:29as high as they are because some police will just get out and start a verbal confrontation
01:36just to obviously get an assault police, resist arrest, the trifecta they call it, assault
01:41police, resist arrest and offensive conduct.
01:44It goes from the highest ranks down to the lowest ranks in the co-ops of racism, so I
01:49believe it's a racist organisation.
01:52They'll say, oh we've done cultural safety training, cultural awareness training.
01:58It's a load of garbage.
01:59The commissioner came out soon after our initial reporting on this culture issue and she's
02:02already announced an official culture review led by a former human rights commissioner.
02:07She says she's taking it seriously, she acknowledges there is a problem.
02:10Now obviously she says that there is absolutely no place for racism or discrimination in the
02:14police force and she also said that they have put significant resources into ensuring they
02:19have an equal opportunity workplace.
02:21She also says they've put in significant resources to address the Closing the Gap initiative
02:26and of course these officers claim that this culture is significantly contributing to how
02:30many Indigenous people are in custody.
02:34Obviously that culture review is ongoing.
02:35We don't know where it's at at the moment but we hope to get an update sometime early
02:39next year.