Call for research into Ethnic Bias within the Criminal Justice System

The lack of research into Maori over-representation in the criminal justice system, has prompted a call by Rethinking Crime and Punishment Director Kim Workman, for the establishment of a Research Institute into Maori and the Criminal Justice System.

In a speech to the ‘Justice in the Round’ Conference, held at Waikato University earlier this week, Workman said that the level of Maori over-representation had reached a level equalling that of the treatment of African-Americans in the United States.

“The difference is that the USA has developed strategies to reduce racial profiling by the police. It has also shifted the emphasis from drug law enforcement to treatment and prevention, eliminated mandatory sentencing laws such as ‘three strikes’, and allowed judicial discretion to take account of offenders' life circumstances. Those proposals are working to reduce unjustifiable racial disparities and the collateral human and social harms they cause.”

“In New Zealand, we have no such strategies, partly because we have no relevant research. We have no relevant research because we have failed to own the problem.
While government acknowledges those factors which contribute to Maori criminal offending such as poverty, unemployment, family dysfunction, drug and alcohol abuse, it has not responded to the issue of systemic bias within the criminal justice system. It is almost as though we don’t want to acknowledge that bias might exist.”

“Recent research from both Department of Corrections and the Ministry of Justice found that bias occurs within the criminal justice system, and that suspect or actual offending by Maori has harsher consequences for those Maori, resulting in an accumulation of Maori within the system. When Maori are imprisoned at a rate seven and a half times that of non-Maori, seven times more likely to be arrested for breach of probation, and eleven times more likely to be refused bail than non-Maori, that should be telling us that something is wrong with the way the criminal justice system is administered.”

“The result of that is alarming. Today, 40% of Maori males over the age of 15 years have either been imprisoned or subjected to a community sentence.”

“An independent research institute to examine issues relating to Maori within the criminal justice system, could contribute toward the gap in our knowledge base. At present, there is very little criminal justice research being done in New Zealand, and almost nothing about Maori offending.”

Kim Workman’s speech can be downloaded at:

http://wwwrethinking.org.nz/Default.aspx?page=3426
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