Māori even more overrepresented in prisons, despite $98m strategy

Sunday, 1 May 2022

Māori are even more overrepresented in prisons now, despite a strategy to tackle the issue. (File photo).

The proportion of Māori in prison has increased in the past three years, after the Government launched a $98m strategy to address the justice system overrepresentation.

This is despite the prison population falling to its lowest number in 14 years, with new Department of Corrections figures showing 7669 people were in jail in March.

Justice reform advocates said the figures showed that more sweeping reforms were needed.

“There needs to be a significant and fundamental change in how these different agencies go about their business,” said Juan Tauri, a criminologist and Māori justice advocate, who has been involved in improving justice outcomes for Māori since the 1990s.

* Hōkai Rangi prison strategy credibility questioned

* Corrections defends slow progress on Hōkai Rangi strategy

The latest quarterly figures showed that 53.4% of prisoners were Māori, the highest rate since the Hōkai Rangi strategy was launched in August 2019 to address the disproportionate number of Māori in the justice system. At that time, the figure sat at 51.9%.

Wāhine Māori make up an even higher proportion of the female prison population: currently representing 65%.

Corrections Minister Kelvin Davis defended the five-year Hōkai Rangi strategy, said it would need the full five years to be implemented.

Across New Zealand as a whole, only 16% of the general population identify as Māori.

The Ministry of Justice has acknowledged the lack of change.

The latest quarterly figures showed that 53.4% of prisoners were Māori. Only 16% of the general population in New Zealand identify as Māori. (fFile photo).

“While there has been large decreases in the total prison population over recent years there has not been a shift in the disproportionate impact of the adult justice system on Māori,” it noted in its annual 10-year projections report, released in March.

Corrections Minister Kelvin Davis defended the five-year Hōkai Rangi strategy, which has previously been criticised after an Ombudsman report found prisoners at Paremoremo prison were being locked up for 23 hours a day, and after Waikeria Prison inmates rioted over poor conditions.

The programme, launched by Corrections Minister Kelvin Davis on Tuesday, has been designed to recognise and respond to the specific needs of Māori women in the criminal justice system. (Video first published May 2021).

People seemed to expect that things would change from day one, he said. “It is a five-year strategy, and it will take all of five years to implement,” he said. “We are laying the foundations for the next 5,7,10 years.”

The imprisonment rate for Māori was dropping, Davis said in a phone interview. “So it's heading in the right direction, but obviously we've still got a heck more that we need to do.”

Māori Pathways programme launched at Hawke's Bay Prison.

The Hōkai Rangi strategy aimed to lower the proportion of Māori in prison to a level that matches the Māori population over 15 years.

It was co-designed with Māori, while incorporating a te ao Māori view, and aimed to ensure Māori prisoners had better access to rehabilitation programmes, more time with their whānau, and to ensure their mana was upheld.

Last year, Corrections chief executive Jeremy Lightfoot said the department was aiming to achieve 37 short-term actions in the first two years of the strategy being launched.

But almost three years on, only 27 had been “substantively delivered,” Corrections Deputy Chief Executive for Māori, Topia Rameka, said.

Tauri, the Māori justice advocate, said he had seen many strategies since the 1990s targeting the disproportionate make-up of prisons fail to do so, adding that it was hard not to be pessimistic.

“None of it is that surprising,” he said, of the recent data. “The result is what? The same. And then they put out another report, and it's the outcomes were Māori are no better than they were previously, but it's okay, we've got all these strategies coming on board, they should make a difference, and then they don't,” he said. “The accountability is missing.”

The blame lay not just with Corrections, but also with police and the Ministry of Justice, he said.

In its report, the ministry noted police’s Te Huringa o Te Tai Strategy to reduce offending and victimisation of Māori, and Te Ao Mārama, the judiciary’s model to change the way court operates by directly responding to the root causes of crime.

Despite being halfway through the five-year strategy, Rameka said Corrections was still developing a measurement framework to help it track its progress.

“The work we are doing is complex, and in many respects new, so it is critical we learn what is most appropriate, and what builds our evidence base,” he said.

The framework is continuing to be tested and refined and in the meantime, she said in a statement. Progress was being tracked using other measures, such as the recidivism index, which measures re-offending, and the rehabilitation quotient, which measures the impact of rehabilitative programmes, he said.

Rameka said it was important to note the results would be affected by factors both within, and outside, Corrections’ influence.

Since the prison population peaked at 10,820 in March 2018, the raw number of Māori serving prison sentences is now at its lowest point in 17 years, he said.

“The overrepresentation of Māori in the justice system is one of the most significant challenges we need to address, however we must also acknowledge that it will take time to make change to a centuries-old system that has delivered inequitable outcomes for Māori,” he said.