‘You don’t know how horrible it is until you’ve experienced it:’ Does Australia need stronger laws to limit racial profiling?

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An Australian student of Maori descent claims to have been racially profiled by security officers after being denied entry into a popular hotel restaurant.

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Tomika Shaw, student at The University of Newcastle, recently decided to drive her and her friends to a restaurant bar in Hamilton, Newcastle.

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But, the 20-year old Law and Criminology student was ‘very shocked’ to be refused entry, and was instructed to leave vicinity… Or else.

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‘Three security officers let all of my friends in except for me,’ said Tomika.

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‘They asked if I was Maori. I said yes. They said that I wasn’t allowed to enter because “all Maori's are alcoholics" and "you're dangerous to yourself and others. You're not allowed in.” I was sober,’ she told TheMix.com.

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Tomika Shaw says her experience with racial profiling left her feeling ‘very shocked’ and ‘disappointed’ (Supplied by TheMix.com).

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After this incident, the horrified miss Shaw filed a
complaint with the hotel.

‘As a result, the security guards were given a warning.
I knew they wouldn’t get anything more than that,’ she
said.

But it isn’t just miss Shaw experiencing this sort of
behaviour.

 

Successful Sydney lawyer, Adam Houda, has been
wrongfully arrested, detained and questioned by NSW
police no less than 6 times over the course of eleven years.

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He told TheMix.com that this behaviour is unacceptable,
and he is tired of police ‘getting away with it'.

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Successful Sydney Lawyer, Adam Houda, wants some legal change regarding who police stop and search after his many wrongful arrests, questioning and detaining (Supplied).

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‘You don’t know how horrible it is until you’ve experience it,’ Adam told TheMix.com.

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(Adam's experience [FairFax Media])

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It is these kinds of incidents that brought researchers at UNSW to come together as members of The Police Accountability Project (PAP) in Victoria.

Leading lawyer from PAP, Tamar Hopkins, and her team created a public survey to gather data on experiences of racial profiling, which is still open for the public to complete.

‘We can’t release this data just yet as we are still undergoing research,’ she told TheMix.com.

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However, what Dr Hopkins could reveal is that Australia seriously lacks statistical data on racial profiling when compared to countries like the UK, US and Canada, confirmed by Dr. Lorne Foster from York University in Canada:

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Managing director and CEO of SECTA Security Training, Duncan McGufficke,
also has little tolerance for this unethical behaviour.

‘As a security training organisation, SECTA follows the NSW Police’s Security
Licencing & Enforcement Directorate (SLED) guidelines on being culturally
aware as a security officer,’ he told TheMix.com.

The SLED guidelines clearly state that discrimination is something to be taken
very seriously, and is highly unacceptable.

But people like Adam and Tomika, who are outraged about their experiences
with police officials, are not yet satisfied, and are wanting to see some
legislative change.

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‘It’s not just police. The entire legal system really needs to crack down on this
behaviour. It concerns me that there’s little data on these sorts of incidents
available… I’m not surprised that Australia is behind the rest of the world,’
Adam told TheMix.com.

‘Australia needs stronger laws to limit racial profiling especially in bars and
nightclubs. With such a multicultural society, it’s absolutely essential to have
individuals who are in a position of power to have a progressive mindset,’

said Tomika.

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See this video below which details Tomika Shaw's racial profiling experience.

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Tomika told TheMix.com what happened, how she felt, and what she wants to see happen in the future.​

 

 

Romania also has records of experiencing racial profiling, but in the following case, the racial profiling actually entered the home:

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Edit - Deprivation*

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