Our racist justice system and Teina Pora
As NZ is on the eve of 10 000 prisoners, we need to have a long hard look at how racist our justice system has become.
There are many, many, many Teina Pora’s in NZs underfunded prison service and the structural racism in our prisons isn’t helping.
The United Nations Human Rights Committee has criticised New Zealand’s record on Maori unemployment, imprisonment, the foreshore and seabed and the Trans Pacific Partnership.
The research by Jarrod Gilbert earlier this year explains why our incredibly high incarceration rates for Maori are so culturally devastating for them…
Maori incarceration rates are an issue for us all
That New Zealand is a highly imprisoned country is pretty widely known – but even those who know the numbers can be excused some confusion. For the vast majority of people – both inside and outside the country – the imprisonment rate seems incongruous with New Zealand’s image. Are we really so dangerous and riddled with crime that our imprisonment rates must be 34 per cent higher than Australia, 39 per cent higher than the UK, and 73 per cent higher than Canada? Is New Zealand really that rough and lawless?
Political one-upmanship between National and Labour, increasing sentence lengths, and greater difficulty in gaining parole can help explain our growing prison numbers. But without question, any analysis will look naked if it fails to address the moa in the room.
Fifty per cent of the prison population is Maori. It’s a fact regularly cited in official documents, and from time to time it garners attention in the media. Given they make up 15 per cent of the population, it’s immediately clear that Maori incarceration is highly disproportionate, but it’s not until the numbers are given a greater examination that a more accurate perspective emerges.
With an overall population of 4.6 million and a prison muster of 9400, New Zealand has 204 prisoners per 100,000 people. It’s this ratio that’s used to compare incarceration rates around the world, but it’s the internal comparison, between Maori and non-Maori that is more interesting, and more troubling, for New Zealand.
If Maori were imprisoned at the same rate as non-Maori, then the combined total prison population would reduce from 9400 to fewer than 4900. In this scenario, the country has no prison crisis and we’re closing rather than building prisons. New Zealand’s imprisonment ratio drops from 204 to 105 and we slide from being 7th in the OECD to 20th, smugly behind Australia, the UK and Canada. In other words, if Maori crime and conviction rates are the same as non-Maori, the effect is utterly transformative.
Looking at the data in this way, the impact Maori have on New Zealand’s overall incarceration rate becomes clearer and more concerning. That this impact stems from within just 15 per cent of the population hints at the significance of the problem, which further analysis of the data plays out.
The Maori imprisonment ratio works out to 609 per 100,000, meaning Maori are nearly six times more likely to be imprisoned than non-Maori. If the entire population were to be imprisoned at the same rate as Maori, New Zealand’s prison muster would skyrocket toward 30,000. The numbers seem dystopian, yet they very much reflect the realities of many Maori families and neighbourhoods.
…our racist justice system is destroying and hollowing out huge sections of Maori families and communities. Pora represents a system that has imploded upon itself due to its corrupted bias.
This isn’t justice this is a cultural massacre perpetrated with even greater vigour now a private corporation is involved.
We need to take a long hard look at ourselves and what we are allowing to happen in our country.
This has to be the biggest load of rubbish I have ever read on The Daily Blog website.
Don’t commit the crime and you won’t do the time its as simply as that.
“Show me the man, I will show you the crime.” – Preet Bharara
Hi the truth.
Question for u: what crime are you refering to?
Another Mein Kampf believer.
I’m, so this guy didn’t do the crime. He was framed. Kinda someone else, you know like the police forcing a false confession needs to do the time…because they committed a crime.
to “The Truth” you are incorrect, because unless you are able to dis-prove the theories in this article you don’t have a leg to stand on. Real, high detailed, accurate data on exactly how our court systems operate in terms of Guilty/Not Guilty status, success rates, false confession rates etc, to the best of my knowledge has not been done. The hypothesis in the article is not disproven – it could be true.
It appears there is a problem with the race ratio of incarceration. But is it “racist?” I am open to persuasion either way but the raw figures dont give me the detail. For example I suspect that if we did a correlation with the bottom 20 percent by income we might find a 50 / 50 ratio on racial incarceration rates. We might not. Who knows?
The point Martyn is that its too easy to cheerlead a headline like this but it ends up getting buried because you cant answer causation questions. Then some RWNJ will say, “See told you so”. And we are no further ahead. Myself Im angry about the numbers because you dont get there if you dont do the crime AND I dont believe most crime is a result of individual predisposition to those behavoirs. Im confident that given the same circumstance it is likely Joe and Rangi will behave similarly. I could take a punt and say its likely a generational socio economic issue compounded by the lingering effects of colonisation. I suspect that theres plenty of empirical evidence from which you might draw more conclusive statements for a headline. But please Martyn dont leave yourself open to real racist counter attack.
Maori will be imprisoned at the same rate as non-Maori when Maori reduce their crime rate to the same as non-Maori. There, FIFY.
Jeez, another right-wing moron who is utterly clueless. Teina Pora was found INNOCENT, you numbnuts!!
Man in the middle reminds me of piggy in the middle
So its ‘ those’ people against ‘this ‘ people , is it , Middle?….
You must have been brought up very sheltered, mate.
Or did you read Mein Kampf and really believe in it?
You reckon Man….could be other causes, and alternate results. Heres a possible scenario (to quote a great latter day poet)
A street kid gets arrested, gonna do some time
He got out three years from now just to commit more crime
A businessman is caught with 24 kilos
He’s out on bail and out of jail
And that’s the way it goes
Raah!
Grandmaster Flash – White Lines .
You must be Hoskngs middle New Zealanders…white male.
its a combination of living in poverty, their educational achievements aren’t enough, fewer opportunities to make a decent living if coming from a background in different forms of abuse. However the largest factor is due to the mainstream culture reinforcing themselves through all aspects of society. This leads to disenfranchisement from the outside groups (minority groups) and when someone is not deemed as worthy as the dominating culture, this gets internalised and becomes a self for filling prophecy. From previous laws, expectations and predudice from the dominating group…how can a minority group hope to overcome this culture when most of its members are clueless or are in a deliberate ignorance. There is lack of love, empathy and respect. This needs addressing.