African migrants face unfair stigma as Melbourne gang stoush escalates, advocates say
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Saturation media coverage of a "gang crisis" is fuelling discrimination against young African immigrants, who are increasingly "viewed as criminals wherever they go", community advocates say.
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull this week criticised the Victorian Government for not doing more about Melbourne's "growing gang violence and lawlessness", and police yesterday said the city had a problem with a small number of African migrants involved in gang behaviour.
Anthony Kelly from Smart Justice — a group of organisations led by Victoria's Federation of Community Legal Centres — said the "black crime association" in mainstream media was a key factor behind the practice of racial profiling by police.
"Being stopped prolifically is a very common experience for African young people in Melbourne — being stopped by police and being asked what they're doing and to account for themselves," Mr Kelly said.
"Victoria Police are starting to train against that, against those biases, but we do know that it still occurs."
Mr Kelly said the "political football" over youth crime could have major consequences for African young people.
"Because there's a racialised element to this law-and-order panic, we see a vast array of discriminatory and criminalisation effects. They get viewed as criminals wherever they go."
The issue has become highly political, prompting another stoush between the state and federal governments, after Mr Turnbull said Premier Daniel Andrews lacked the leadership and determination to deal with it.
Police Minister Lisa Neville said she was disappointed the Prime Minister was trying to get political mileage out of the issue.
"I'd appreciate maybe the Commonwealth Government focusing on some other issues like how we provide migration support to immigrants coming in to our community," Ms Neville told the ABC's 7.30 program.
"Stop cutting youth employment programs that are also so critical, TAFE programs, university, all of those things that are so critical to really getting to some of the root causes of this issue, rather than playing politics of this nature."
African-Australian Multicultural Employment and Youth Services CEO Berhan Ahmed said African communities were sick of the partisan political fighting.
"I agree with the Victorian police, they were Africans and there are Africans in this violent crime, but this should not be stigmatising the whole African community," Dr Ahmed told the ABC's PM program.
"These criminals have to be punished, but not the community, and that's important — to put a line between the criminals and the African community at large."
Yesterday, Victoria Police Acting Chief Commissioner Shane Patton said African youth were overrepresented in serious and violent crime and public disorder offences.
"These young thugs, these young criminals, they're not an organised crime group like a Middle Eastern organised crime group or an outlaw motorcycle gang. But they're behaving like street gangs, so let's call them that — that's what they are," Acting Commissioner Patton said.
The State Opposition has proposed mandatory sentencing for repeat serious criminals, and called for the State Government to scrap Youth Control Orders — a sentencing alternative requiring offenders to take part in education or work, rather than detaining them.
Crime statistics show an overrepresentation of Sudanese-born and Kenyan-born offenders in some categories.
There was a sharp rise in Sudanese-born offenders involved in aggravated burglaries, from 20 in the 2014-15 financial year to 98 two years later, according to Victoria's Crime Statistics Agency.
However, the statistics also show that a Victorian is more than 25 times more likely to be seriously assaulted by someone born in Australia or New Zealand than someone born in Sudan or Kenya.
Topics: crime, law-crime-and-justice, multiculturalism, community-and-society, government-and-politics, federal---state-issues, states-and-territories, melbourne-3000, vic
