Police play down African problem. Then top ex-cop is victim

Victoria Police once told complete falsehoods about the level of crime by Sudanese refugees. Today they are still trying to downplay it. But the force's former deputy assistant traffic commissioner has just been the victim of attempted carjacking by four African youth. UPDATE: The statistics are shocking. 

Victoria Police once told complete falsehoods about the level of crime by Sudanese refugees. 

They were denying the truth back in 2007, helping to smear then Immigration Minister Kevin Andrews:

But worst was the reaction of Victoria Police, led by Labor-appointed Christine Nixon.

Nixon claimed Andrews was wrong about Sudanese crime rates: “They’re not, in a sense, represented more than the proportion of them in the population.”

A police multicultural liaison officer agreed: “There’s an under-representation of the Sudanese in crime stats.”

Those police claims were false. Figures let slip by Nixon the following year revealed crime rates for Sudanese youth at least four times the state average.

Today they are still trying to downplay it:

The thugs who attacked the Walias were of African descent and Apex has Sudanese members...

Victoria Police deputy commissioner Andrew Crisp ... plays down ethnic and geographic dimensions to the gang violence.

“We have seen ­offenders come together from all parts of Melbourne,” he says.

“Not just Sudanese from Dandenong. It is the United Nations of offending — we are seeing those of African background, we are seeing Pacific Islands youth, and we are seeing those of a very strong Anglo (Saxon) background and some others thrown in as well.”

 But a former senior Victoria Police official has just been the victim of attempted carjacking by four African youths. 

Former assistant traffic commissioner Noel Ashby told Neil Mitchell he was driving to Geelong for an 11.30am business appointment when the lane encroachment alarm suddenly went off in his Mercedes.

A 4WD, full of African teens, had snuck up beside him. A passenger in the car was ordering him to pull over.

He was brandishing a tomahawk.

This denial must stop.

And perhaps we should now ask Andrews' predecessor as Immigration Minister, Amanda Vanstone, why she imported so much trouble.

UPDATE

The imprisonment rates for Sudanese are shocking - the biggest for any ethnic group and more than three times the average:

Persons born in Sudan had the highest imprisonment rate (701.6 prisoners per 100,000 adult population born in Sudan), followed by persons born in Samoa (432.4 prisoners per 100,000 adult population born in Samoa). The number of Sudanese-born and Samoan-born prisoners was 131 and 100 respectively.

And note: these statistics are two years old and the problem has got even worse since. Moreover, police have been under pressure to deny the problem and avoid "racial stereotyping". I suspect arrests have been fewer than they should have been.