As of May 2010 New Zealand has boasted the sixth highest rate of imprisonment amongst the OECD nations. [1] Of every 100,000 people 199 of those are serving sentences in prison. [2] The picture becomes even more concerning when we look at imprisonment rates of Maori which account a 51 percent majority of the population population. [3] This is despite of Maori accounting for just under 15 percent of New Zealand’s total population. [4] Over all rates of Maori imprisonment sit at 700 per 100,000 people, a rate 3.5 times higher than the non-Maori population. [5]
Put simply Maori are more likely to be imprisoned than non-Maori. However these disparities become more acute when these figures are broken down into age demographics. For instance in 2009 the imprisonment rates of young Maori males aged 25 was seven times the rate of 25-year old non-Maori males. (8)
Previous attempts to understand the over representation of Maori imprisonment in New Zealand have increased since the later half of the 20th Century much of which was conducted in the 1970′s and 1980′s. These studies have tended to focus on Maori individuals regardless of age rather than focusing on rangatahi Maori or Maori as collective groups. Many have focused on the disproportionate numbers of Maori throughout the entire criminal justice process.Below I will outline some of the hypothesis generated from these works
A statistic thesis conducted by Duncan (1971) analysed the numbers of arrests and charges brught against Maori and Polynesian peoples in Auckland in 1966. [7] Duncan came to the conclusion that the higher numbers of arrests and charges were directly related to higher rates of offenses committed by the two groups of people concerned. This behaviour was explained in terms of being a result of the effects of migration and urbanization. Given this explaination Duncan expected that the disproportionality would dissolve over the generations as Maori and Polynesian peoples became “assimilated” into the New Zealand way of life.
Subsequent work undertaken in 1972 by Duncan provided a structural account of the mechanisms in which racial disparities in criminal offending may occur. [8] Here Duncan argues that the rates of charges and convictions is effected by bias in New Zealand’s criminal justice process and by social mechanisms that reinforce perceptions of racially based criminal behaviour.
O’Malley built on Duncan’s work on social mechanisms by including the contextual factors of low-economic status, urbanization, cultural conflict and selective processing. [9] He observed that Maori were only half as likely to have legal representation and less likely to appeal a guilty verdict. Factors such as these lead him to conclude that Maori were more likely to be disadvantaged within the court experience.
In 1975 a number of papers collated by the Joint Committe on Young Offenders (JCYO) aged 18 found that disproportionate rates of Maori offending could not be explained by social economic factors in isolation and that cultural values around property and rural dislocation were also important variables. [10]
Moana Jackson’s seminal paper in published in 1988 signaled a methodological turn in understanding Maori imprisonment. [11] Jackson critiqued earlier analysis arguing that it was empirically slanted work stemming from a western worldview that relied to heavily on individuals as the unit of observation. Jackson argued that there was a need for including the historical impacts of colonization such as landlessness and cultural degradation in relation to Maori offending. Central to his argument was that solutions should be based on collective rather than individual premises as these are more compatible and effective when we take into account communal Maori cultural values. Jackson also advocated for a parallel system of justice for Maori to ensure fairness in the criminal justice system.
Mason Durie in his book Nga Kahui Pou (2003) addresses Maori imprisonment as a consequence of what he terms “trapped lifestyles” that are characterised by risk, marginalization, poor health, coupled with a lack of opportunity to escape from the cycle. [12] Mason sees the forerunners to imprisonment as being related to a number of socio-economic issues such as educational failure, unemployment, loss of language and culture, limited participation in society and a diminished level of self-respect.
A substantial ammount of literature in the area has tended to focus on discriptive and explainatory accounts rather than extending itself to provide potential solutions to issues at hand (excluding Jackson 1988). It should be noted that the development of policy to reduce imprisonment has historically prioritized international evidence taken from the United Kingdom, USA and Canada. [13] The application of this research to Maori imprisonment rates may not be ideal as it does not come from a worldview and cannot simply be assumed to translate efficiently into a Maori setting. With rising levels of disproportionate Maori imprisonment such approaches can be said to have failed to impact satisfactorily upon on the rates of Maori offending and incarceration.
[1] Health in Justice: Improving the health of prisoners and their families and whanau (2010) http:/www.nhc.health.govt.nz/moh.nsf/indexcm/nhc-health-in-justice Accessed 09/08/2011
[2] Health in Justice (2010) ibid.
[3] ibid.
[4] Statistics New Zealand www.stats.govt.nz/…/census/2006/maori. Accessed 10/08/2011.
[5] Health in Justice (2010) ibid.
[6] Ibid
[7] Duncan, L.S.W. (1971) ‘Explanations for Polynesian crime rates in Auckland.’ in Recent Law, October 1971, pp. 283-288
[8] Duncan, L.S.W. (1972) ‘Racial considerations in Polynesian crime’ in Vaughan, G. (ed.) (1972) Racial Issues in Polynesian New Zealand. Auckland: Akarana Press.
[9] O’Malley, P. (1973b) ‘The influence of cultural factors on Maori crime rates’ in Webb, S.D. & Collette, J. (eds.) (1973) New Zealand Society- Contemporary Perspectives. Sydney: John Willey & Sons Australasia Pty Ltd.
[10] fergusson, D.M, Donnell, A. & Slater, S.W. (1975) ‘The effects of race and socio-economic status on juvenile offending statistics.’ from the Joint Committee on Young Offenders, Research Report No.2. Wellington: New Zealand.
[11] Jackson, Moana. (1988) ‘The Maori and the criminal justice system: He Whaipaanga Hou – A new perspective,’ Part 2. Wellington : Department of Justice.
[12] Durie, Mason. (2003) Nga Kahui Pou: Launching Maori Futures. Huia: Wellington
[13] ‘Addressing the drivers of crime for Maori report’ Te Puni Kokiri 2011.