Police Persecution of Adelaide’s Homosexual Culture: 1945-1972

Abstract

The flowering of Adelaide’s homosexual culture in the years immediately following World War II and before the decriminalisation of homosexuality in the 1970s was accompanied by persecution at the hands of the South Australian police. This essay draws substantially on extensive oral history records previously unavailable to researchers to delineate police abuse of powers during that period. Particular strategies explicitly designed to identify, control and destroy the homosexual culture – including informants, entrapment, verballing, coercion and harassment – were employed by the police throughout these years.