Victorian Police Commissioner Simon Overland’s admission yesterday that racism existed inside his force is an acknowledgement of reality. But it does put governments and police commissioners in Australia in a quandary.

As a UK study released this week shows, racist incidents occur between the police and the community most commonly when the former are exercising their stop and search, or move on, powers. These are the powers the Victorian government has introduced and the Western Australian government wants to invest police with, as part of a campaign to curtail street violence and public drunkenness.

In the West, the Barnett government wants to give police the power to stop and search any individual without the police having to show reasonable grounds for their search. Since December last year in Victoria police have had the power to search individuals without a warrant in what are called “designated areas”, and they can issue on-the-spot fines to people who refuse to leave clubs and pubs. South Australian Premier Mike Rann has pledged to introduce similar powers into his state if he is returned to office in Saturday’s election.

The problem with the police being given these “social control” powers is that they are the cause of racial tension and their misuse by police will expose governments to lawsuits brought by individuals who have been the victim of racial abuse by police. This is what has occurred in the UK where the Blair and Brown governments have handed police similar types of powers.

In fact, as recently as Tuesday the UK Equality and Human Rights Commission released a report that reviewed the use of stop-and-search powers in police areas around the UK over a five-year period.  Its conclusion:

“Nationally, black people are still stopped and searched at least six times the rate of white people. Asian people are about twice as likely to be stopped and searched as white people. The evidence suggests racial stereotyping and discrimination are significant factors behind the higher rates of stops and searches for black and Asian people than white people.”

This finding is consistent with analysis of arrest statistics from the Toronto police since 2002 by the Toronto Star newspaper, which found black persons were three times more likely to be stopped and searched by police than white persons.

There is no reason to think that the situation in Australia would be any different — in fact it may be worse in states such as Western Australia where racism is part of the furniture in some communities.

The bottom line is this: giving police strong powers to interact with people on the street is a recipe for racist attacks and racial profiling. And people who suffer injuries as a result of wrongful arrests or police brutality will sue governments and generally win their cases.  So stop-and-search powers are not only a tool of social division but expensive to the taxpayer in the long term.

Perhaps Overland should be asking the Brumby government not to give his force so much opportunity to show its racist underbelly. Repealing or restricting stop and search powers would be a good place to start.