Political statements and reporting from media outlets on "African gangs" are increasing racial discrimination in Victoria, according to new figures released this week by the Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission.
The commission found that race-related reports of discrimination made to the commission's enquiry line have risen by 34% from the 2016-17 to the 2017-18 financial year.
The number of formal complaints pursued has risen 129% from 2017 to 2018, with 33 complainants alleging racial discrimination in the first half of last year compared to 75 in the first half of this year.
The report points to "inflammatory race-related political statements and reporting in January of this year, revived again last week by some media outlets" as the driving force of this leap in discrimination reports.
"Today's figures suggest that a racially-charged atmosphere persists long after the headlines have faded," the report says.
Kristen Hilton, the Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights commissioner, told BuzzFeed News that this escalation in reported discrimination is affecting the African community: "We've had incidences of Sudanese schoolgirls who have been waiting for the bus and have been spat on.
"50% of those complaints have related to racism in employment, for example; we had one person who came to us [after] the potential employer asked him if he was a member of an Apex gang".
The concern about so-called African gangs in Australia has become a high-profile issue over the past year following widespread political and media attention.
When questioned on the issue of gangs on Tuesday morning, prime minster Malcolm Turnbull told 3AW that there is "real concern about street crime in Melbourne. There is real concern about Sudanese gangs".
Attention was first drawn to the gang activity following violence at Melbourne's 2016 Moomba Festival that resulted in over 50 arrests and was blamed on the primarily South Sudanese Apex gang.
Home affairs minister Peter Dutton stated in an interview with 2GB in January this year that the issue has Victorians scared.
Dutton claimed that "people are scared to go out to restaurants" as a result of "African gang violence".
Channel 7's Sunday Night has been criticised for its sensationalised coverage of African gangs in Australia.
TOMORROW 8.20 @sundaynighton7 | Barely a week goes by when they’re not in the news. African gangs running riot, terrorising, wreaking havoc. Police are hesitant to admit there’s even a problem. The latest attack was just days ago, so what can be done? #SN7 https://t.co/hYzxka9MEV
Sudanese people are over-represented in Victoria's crime statistics, with people born in Sudan making up 0.1% of Victoria's total population but accounting for 1.0% of the unique offender population (people who committed one or more crimes in the relevant period).
For reference, people born in Australia make up 71.7% of the unique offender population in Victoria, according to the latest statistics from 2017.
Hilton believes that a sensationalised discussion around these issues is unproductive for addressing the issue.
"The difficulty is around that causal link between race and crime as opposed to what things these offenders also have in common, which is often really poor housing, unemployment, dropping out of school, struggling at home, and intergenerational family trauma as a result of their refugee past."
So, how are these media representations affecting the rates of racial discrimination reporting?
Associate professor Fiona Barlow, a researcher in intergroup relations and prejudice from the School of Psychology at the University of Queensland, told BuzzFeed News that the media plays an important role in shaping people's racial perceptions and biases.
"We're social creatures so we look to our broader society to get information about how we should think about different groups, and certainly the media can have a huge impact there," she said.
"When it comes to racial attitudes, we know that some people hold more racial hostility than others, so the media can shape if it's acceptable to be openly hostile to other groups, it can set a norm around whether it's okay to be openly racist, for example."
A 2018 paper that studied the effects of racist commentary around the 2016 US presidential election shows that the discriminatory expressions adopted by politicians and the media can set the standards for tolerance of prejudice.
These changes in norms surrounding the campaign resulted in a rise in bias-related incidents (the Southern Poverty Law Center saw a significant rise in its normal complaint rate in the month following the election with over 1,000 harassment and discrimination complaints in one month).
"When social norms shift to the approval of prejudice, groups can engage in discrimination, hate speech, and violence" the report stated.
Barlow says that this effect is particularly evident when people have limited personal experience with certain groups and have to draw on politicians and the media to decide "who they like and who they don't like – who's a threat and who's not".
Barlow also notes that these perceptions affect how minority groups come to perceive themselves.
Hilton says that the sensationalised media coverage needs to change in order to properly address the crimes Melbourne is experiencing.
"The danger around that is that we don't get to have a sensible discussion about what is happening and look at the underlying issues as to why what is a relatively small cohort of young offenders is engaging in serious criminal activity".