Race, Crime, and Statistics

From the Herald Sun:

I AM sorry. I may have misled you about the Sudanese gangs I defended last year.

Back then, I denounced the hate-merchants demonising Sudanese here as misfits, too prone to violence.

True, one gang of boys had just bashed a policeman, but I gave you police statistics showing the crime rate among Sudanese immigrants was no higher than for the rowdy rest of us.

But days later, gangs of African youths fought each other in the Highpoint shopping centre. And Indian taxi drivers kept getting robbed by African men.

Just this week, Sudanese gangs in Adelaide attacked each other in a clash so deadly that one youth was killed and another near death.

But those police statistics tell us there's no problem among the Sudanese. Which makes an article like this unfair and unhelpful.

Yet, I started to sniff something when Police Commissioner Christine Nixon banned police from using the word "gangs" to describe, well, gangs. I worried more when an African community leader, Berhan Ahmed, asked Nixon to stop police checking Africans in Flemington quite so often.

And now charges have been dropped over a riot in Racecourse Rd last December in which some 100 Africans surrounded 21 police trying to arrest a rock-thrower, and sent one to hospital with suspected cracked ribs.

At the time, the force defended its officers. Region 3 boss Insp Nigel Howard denied they were racist or too heavy-handed: "Enough is enough."

It's a different story today, and Sen-Sgt Mario Benedetti, in charge of Moonee Ponds police station, says he suspects charges against the rioters were dropped because of their race.

The explanation that Supt Jack Blayney gave our reporter, Mark Buttler, didn't seem to deny it: "The withdrawal of these charges followed consultation with the members and youths concerned and was deemed to be the best outcome for both parties."

Pardon? Is this a peace negotiation between two warring gangs, then, one of them the police? And is there not actually a law to uphold, regardless of race, and a force to defend?

But no charges means no offence recorded. And the police can keep telling us: the Sudanese crime rate is no higher than everyone else's.

(Hat tip: John Ray)