10 April 2013

Greens go to Devoy on Maori youth prosecution rates

The Green Party has written to the new Race Relations Commissioner, Dame Susan Devoy, asking her to investigate new findings which show Māori youth are disproportionately prosecuted for crimes compared to other ethnicities.

Youth organisation JustSpeak has released information about the number of youth and child police apprehensions leading to prosecution and shows that, for every offence, Māori have a higher proportion of apprehensions leading to prosecution.

“Despite Government initiatives aimed at addressing the over-representation of Maori in the criminal justice system we remain frustrated at the levels of racial discrimination still occurring,” said Green Party Justice spokesperson, David Clendon.

“Today we have written to Dame Susan asking her, as Race Relations Commissioner to look closely at the structural discrimination that has been raised by JustSpeak, Mr Clendon said.

“This follows the release of a report by the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination in 2012 which should have led to Government acting on the overrepresentation of Māori and Pasifika communities in the New Zealand justice system.

“We are keen to receive a response from our new Race Relations Commissioner addressing this issue, Mr Clendon said.

Letter to Race Relations Commissioner from David Clendon MP - 64.73 KB

ENDS

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