Policing between minorities: ‘Asian-Australian’ police recruits and policing of the LGBT community

ABSTRACT

Using Social Identity Theory (SIT), an online survey was used to capture Asian-Australian police recruit’s perceptions of policing lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people. This research determines that the intersectionality of identity Asian-Australian police recruits (as police officers, as Asian-Australians, and, for a small number of recruits as LGB people) are correlated in relation to perceptions of policing of LGBT people. The results suggest that whilst police training is affective in instilling operational practices and guidelines regarding the policing of minority groups, the overall perceptions of Asian-Australian recruits towards LGBT people are negative. This research supports the idea of increased recruitment of diverse people into police organizations, but it argues that the background characteristics diverse recruits bring into policing (such as cultural influences and levels of bias) can have (like non-diverse recruits) a detrimental effect on perceptions of policing of minority group members.

KEYWORDS:

• Police
• recruits
• Asian
• Australian
• gay
• lesbian

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Australian police organisations are state-based organisations managed by state but subject to federal law.

2. ‘Awareness Training’ is usually administered over two days at the academy and all recruits are expected to attend.

3. Given restrictions by the police organisations it was not possible to conduct post ‘Awareness Training ‘surveys.

4. Identifying as a member of a racial or ethnic minority group was based on self-identification by recruits completing the survey.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Toby Miles-Johnson

Dr Toby Miles-Johnson is a Senior Lecturer in Criminology at the Queensland University of Technology (QUT) Brisbane, Australia. Toby received his Doctorate of Philosophy – Criminology from The University of Queensland. His current research considers inclusion and diversity within police organisations, and police officer perceptions of recruitment, retention, deployment and promotion.