In Chapter 12 I discussed the notion of institutional and community racism. I have referred throughout this chapter to aspects of .racism in police relations with Aboriginal people. The kind of racism that is referred to can be experienced as direct or indirect, and as personal or as institutionalised. Particular ways of treating Aboriginal people may have become so entrenched as to seem normal or necessary, and be carried on without any individual ill-will, or desire or intention to discriminate.
Racism is perhaps the most extreme expression of a whole gamut of behaviours.
Within this context Aboriginal people suffer from racism and poverty. This is not to say that all, or even most, police wish to maintain the subordination of Aboriginal people, nor that they are the only institution in Australian society that act to do so. These actions cannot be divorced, however, from the context of law enforcement which both legitimises them and in which they are carried out. An example of this dilemma is the situation that has developed in relation to protective custody in the Northern Territory. In practice, however, police continue to treat drunkenness as an offence, and because of the lack of beds at sobering-up shelters, many of our people find themselves locked up in the 'drunk tanks' at the police cells anyway.