Victoria police say it has dedicated proactive policing units in every division “designed solely to strengthen community connection and engagement”, including with members of the South Sudanese community.

I was actually involved with one of these “proactive policing units” for a while. I’m not South Sudanese, but I was living in out of home residential care, so they profiled me as being “at risk”, despite the fact I’ve never been charged with anything or been involved with gangs (or really even shown the “challenging behaviour” that they point to).

I didn’t mind the program at first, they usually brought doughnuts and just sort of asked about our days. It was a bit weird, because they still adopted that stern, interrogative police tone and attitude, so it felt a lot more like being interrogated about my day than a natural conversation, and as you can probably expect, it was entirely one way. But I suppose I wasn’t really the target audience, so I didn’t mind too much.

Until one day they came I was having a bad day, and didn’t want to talk to them, so I just stayed in my room and said “I don’t want to talk today, sorry”. They weren’t happy with that, and ordered the worker on duty to open my door. Normally workers shouldn’t do that unless there’s a reason, but this was a new casual lady who had zero clue what was happening or why police were here, so she didn’t ask why, she just assumed they had just reasoning, and unlocked my door.

To be clear: they weren’t forcefully talking to me because they thought I’d commited a crime, had welfare concerns, were trying to interrogate me, or anything else that would give them grounds to kick my door down, had the worker refused. They just wanted to see me and say 5 words to me so they could write a check next to my name in their little book. In my little world, where my room was the only place of safety I had in that house, it felt akin to how I would feel if police went to my landlord and served them a fake warrant to open my door so they could ask how my day was.

After that, even after I explained why I didn’t appreciate that, they didn’t acknowledge they did anything wrong, or even that I felt like they did something wrong, and they never apologised. So I never spoke to them again. Eventually they got the memo and left me be.

I realise that’s not that bad in the grand scheme of things, but I said all that to say, that even being white and not in a gang, or involved in any crime, or suspected of being involved in anything, I don’t think I was treated fairly. I imagine these kids would be copping the same shit PLUS the added disadvantage of a lot of cops holding deeply seated racism, the system wanting to make an “example” out of them, and their families are probably being treated like shit too. Wouldn’t surprise me if these cops just barged into people’s houses, preying on the parents not knowing their rights, or not being confident enough to stand up to them.

We’re less bad than America, but I’ve still seen a lot of “oh you don’t want us to do racism on you? You’re obstructing justice! Tase. Now put your hands behind your back! Oh you didn’t put your hands behind your back while you’re convulsing? Resisting arrest. 9 months in jail. Do not pass go, and do not collect $200”.