Bias crime policing: ‘The Graveyard Shift’

Abstract

Bias crime is crime that is motivated by prejudice or bias towards an attribute of the victim, such as race, religion or sexuality. Police have been criticised for failing to take bias crime seriously. There is a pressing need to understand the reasons for this failure. This article aims to address this gap by presenting the results of the first empirical study of bias crime policing in the Australian state of New South Wales. Drawing on interviews with the New South Wales Police Force, our study found that sustainable reform in this domain has proven elusive. This can be attributed to a number of key challenges: reporting; recording; identification; framing; community engagement and leadership. The lessons that emerge from our findings have important ramifications for all police organisations