This report collates almost four years of NSW Police data on person searches (excluding strip searches) from 2018 to 2022.
The data shows that First Nations (NSW Police data refer to Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander people) are more than twice as likely to be searched by police than the general population.
Redfern Legal Centre (‘RLC’) obtained the data under the Government Information (Public Access) Act 2009 (GIPA Act). The data includes a breakdown of the total number of person searches conducted by NSW Police by location, age, gender and number of searches conducted on First Nations peoples for each financial year.
From 1 July 2018 to 21 May 2022, across New South Wales (‘NSW’) police conducted a total of 855,038 person searches.
In Surry Hills and Waterloo, First Nations peoples are 10 times more likely to be searched than the general population. In key regional areas, they are up to 7 times more likely to be searched.
First Nations peoples are also more likely to be subjected to a search at a younger age, with searches peaking in childhood and remaining high until age 30. One of the most concerning figures is the overrepresentation of First Nations 10-year-olds, who were almost twice as likely to be searched than their peers.
Aside from revealing the overrepresentation of First Nations peoples, the figures also reveal that all children were overrepresented. Of the total searches in NSW for the data period, 112,050 searches (13%) were done on children, although children only comprise 9.7% of the NSW population.
