MEDIA RELEASE
Monday 30 March 2026
The Aboriginal Legal Service is calling out systemic discrimination in policing, following findings that NSW Police are far less likely to choose to divert Aboriginal people away from court than non-Aboriginal people in cases of minor drug possession.
The NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research (BOCSAR) found that, while the Early Drug Diversion Initiative (EDDI) is only working for a very small number of people found in possession of illicit drugs, diversion is especially low for Aboriginal people: just 9% of eligible Aboriginal people are diverted from court under the scheme, compared with 25% of non-Aboriginal people.
“The Early Drug Diversion Initiative is failing, and it’s especially failing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people,” said Sharif Deen, Acting CEO at the Aboriginal Legal Service (NSW/ACT) Limited (ALS).
“Even when police have the option to divert an Aboriginal person away from court, they are choosing to charge them and force them to face criminal punishment. This flies in the face of government’s Closing the Gap commitments.”
Under the EDDI, police have the option to divert people from court towards a health-based response if they are found with small amounts of drugs for personal use – but the ultimate decision is left to individual officers. BOCSAR’s study found that police discretion is impacting the number of Aboriginal people able to access the scheme.
“Whenever police have the power to decide who can access alternatives to court and avoid criminal charges, we see worse outcomes for our people. The NSW Government knows that Aboriginal people are over-represented at every stage of the legal process, from police stops and searches to arrests, charges and imprisonment. But the Government is yet to meaningfully confront systemic discrimination and limit the role of police discretion in determining who gets forced into the criminal justice system,” Mr Deen said.
The low overall rate of people diverted under the EDDI also shows that the scheme’s eligibility criteria are prohibitively restrictive.
“Experts who work at the coalface have been saying for years: drug use must be approached as a public health issue. Criminal punishment for drug use only clogs up the courts, and it does real harm to people and communities,” Mr Deen said.
The ALS continues to call for urgent implementation of all recommendations of the NSW ice inquiry, including decriminalisation of drug possession for personal use. The NSW Government must also review police practices and procedures – particularly the exercise of police discretion – so that law is applied equally and without discrimination, as recommended by the Australian Law Reform Commission’s Pathways to Justice inquiry.
