ABSTRACT
The 1960s saw the repeal of significant sections of discriminatory state legislation as part of the general move towards assimilation and integration. Citizenship rights implied equality of treatment, yet it brought with it ongoing mechanisms of police surveillance derived from more than half a century of protection legislation. The situations in north-western New South Wales and in the Sydney suburb of Redfern provide illustrative examples of the changing mode of criminalisation. The policing of street offences by Aboriginal people became increasingly contentious during the 1980s and 1990s, and focused on what came to be referred to as the ‘over-policing’ of their communities. The concept of over-policing identifies the way Aboriginal people and Aboriginal communities are policed differently, and more extensively, than non-Indigenous communities. The Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody reports are littered with the tragic loss of life caused by the mixture of institutionalised racism and callous and inappropriate policing.
