Contemporary Australian policing operates within a society marked by persistent inequalities, particularly in relation to Indigenous communities. This essay examines whether police serve and protect all citizens equally by analysing the interplay between policing practices and marginalised groups. Drawing on Marxist perspectives, radical criminology, Critical Race Theory, and the concept of social abjection, it focuses on Indigenous overrepresentation in the justice system. The discussion demonstrates that structural inequalities shape differential policing, with evidence drawn from incarceration statistics and scholarly analyses. Through this lens, the essay evaluates how these frameworks illuminate ongoing disparities while acknowledging the limitations of each approach.
Theoretical Frameworks: Marxism, Radical Criminology and Structural Inequality
Inequality in policing arises from the ways in which economic structures influence law enforcement priorities. Marxist criminology posits that the state uses police powers to maintain class relations, directing greater surveillance towards working-class and poorer areas. In Australia, this manifests in higher rates of patrols and stop-and-search activity in disadvantaged suburbs compared with affluent ones. Radical criminology extends this analysis by highlighting how early radical scholars emphasised the role of social conflict in shaping criminal justice responses. Research indicates that such practices reinforce cycles of disadvantage rather than addressing root causes of offending.
The application of these ideas reveals both strengths and limitations. Marxist-informed accounts effectively account for the concentration of police resources in areas of economic deprivation, supported by evidence of disproportionate enforcement of minor public order offences in low-income communities. However, these frameworks tend to underplay the racial dimensions of policing, focusing primarily on class. This limitation necessitates the integration of additional theoretical tools. When combined with empirical data on police deployment patterns, the approach demonstrates that economic marginalisation alone does not fully explain differential treatment. The analysis therefore links to broader questions of race and power, which are examined in the following section.
Critical Race Theory, Intersectionality and Social Abjection
Critical Race Theory provides a necessary lens for understanding how racial hierarchies are reproduced through policing. It argues that legal institutions, including the police, embed and perpetuate racial inequalities rather than operating as neutral arbiters. In the Australian context, this is evident in the routine application of public order offences and on-the-spot fines that disproportionately affect Indigenous people. Intersectionality, developed by Crenshaw, further refines this perspective by showing how race intersects with class, gender and colonial histories to compound vulnerability. Indigenous women, for instance, experience distinctive forms of over-policing that reflect both racial and gendered marginalisation.
Social abjection complements these ideas by conceptualising how certain groups are constructed as outside the boundaries of respectable society. Abject populations are subject to heightened regulation, surveillance and exclusionary practices. When applied to Indigenous communities, abjection helps explain why everyday behaviours become criminalised through discretionary policing decisions. This theoretical synthesis allows for a more nuanced evaluation: while Critical Race Theory and intersectionality highlight racialised power relations, they can occasionally under-emphasise economic determinants. Integrating Marxist insights with these approaches produces a more robust framework, though one that requires careful attention to historical specificity rather than rapid theoretical application.
Disparities in Policing: Indigenous Overrepresentation
Indigenous Australians experience stark overrepresentation across all stages of the criminal justice system, reflecting the cumulative effects of the theoretical dynamics outlined above. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, Indigenous people comprised approximately 32 per cent of the adult prison population in 2022 despite constituting around 3.8 per cent of the total population. This disparity is particularly pronounced in police contact, with Indigenous individuals subject to higher rates of street checks, arrests for minor offences and use of force. Scholarly analyses confirm that these patterns are not solely attributable to differences in offending rates but are shaped by discretionary policing practices.
Empirical studies further substantiate the role of systemic bias. Research published in the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Criminology has documented how police in regional and remote areas apply broader definitions of disorder when interacting with Indigenous populations, leading to elevated charge rates for public intoxication and offensive language. Intersectional factors compound these experiences, as Indigenous youth and women face additional scrutiny that reflects colonial legacies of control. While some government initiatives, such as community policing programmes, have sought to mitigate these effects, evaluations indicate limited success in altering entrenched patterns of over-policing.
The evidence supports a critical interpretation: Indigenous overrepresentation results from the interaction of structural inequality, racialised policing and abjection rather than individual pathology. Nevertheless, quantitative data alone cannot capture the lived experiences of those subject to repeated police encounters. Qualitative accounts consistently describe a relationship with police characterised by mistrust and fear, underscoring the relational damage caused by unequal enforcement. These findings link back to the theoretical frameworks, demonstrating that Marxist, Critical Race Theory and abjection perspectives each contribute distinct yet interconnected explanations for contemporary disparities.
Conclusion
In conclusion, Australian policing does not serve and protect all citizens equally. The application of Marxist and radical criminological perspectives reveals class-based disparities in enforcement, while Critical Race Theory and intersectionality illuminate the racial dimensions of these practices. Social abjection further explains the positioning of Indigenous communities as targets of heightened control. Supported by incarceration statistics and peer-reviewed research, the evidence demonstrates that structural inequalities produce and sustain overrepresentation. Although some policy responses have attempted reform, meaningful change requires sustained engagement with the historical and theoretical roots of these disparities. This analysis underscores the necessity of developing policing practices that address, rather than reproduce, marginalisation.
References
- Australian Bureau of Statistics (2023) Prisoners in Australia, 2022. Canberra: Australian Bureau of Statistics.
- Blagg, H. (2016) Crime, Aboriginality and the Decolonisation of Justice. 2nd edn. Annandale: Federation Press.
- Cunneen, C. (2001) Conflict, Politics and Crime: Aboriginal Communities and the Police. Sydney: Allen & Unwin.
- Cunneen, C. (2018) ‘Indigenous people, criminal justice and the politics of recognition’, in M. Carrington et al. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Criminology and the Global South. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 317–334.
- Crenshaw, K. (1989) ‘Demarginalizing the intersection of race and sex: A Black feminist critique of antidiscrimination doctrine, feminist theory and antiracist politics’, University of Chicago Legal Forum, 1989(1), pp. 139–167.
- Moreton-Robinson, A. (2015) The White Possessive: Property, Power, and Indigenous Sovereignty. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
- Tyler, I. (2013) Revolting Subjects: Social Abjection and Resistance in Neoliberal Britain. London: Zed Books.
- Anthony, T. (2013) Indigenous People, Crime and Punishment. Abingdon: Routledge.
