Throughout the past decades, Māori has been heavily over-represented in the New Zealand criminal justice system. Māori is significantly more likely to be disadvantaged by various risk factors which are linked to criminal offending behaviours. This is not a new phenomenon towards indigenous people as it is a long-standing, wicked problem, with origins in the discriminatory colonial practices. Based on Statistic New Zealand, Maori are 15 percentage of the New Zealand population and yet Maori accounted for 42 percent of apprehensions, 34.5 percent of convictions and 50.8 percent of all inmates in 2009. This essay will discuss the events and factors that have led to New Zealand having an overrepresentation of Maori within the criminal justice system. This essay will also provide some alternative solutions to address this issue and highlight some barriers which may prevent the implementation. …show more content…
According to Moana Jackson (1988), the process of colonisation was shown to be associated with the increase in Maori vulnerability towards crime. This is because the effect of colonisation has ongoing material impacts which led unequal disparities between Maori and non-Maori. For example, Maori are disadvantaged across many socio-economic areas including health, education, recognition, and employment. Early colonist has also negatively marginalized Maori through labelling them as savage, uncivilised and deviant, which has transformed into a living model of humanity. This links to the orientalism theory developed by Edward, where European superiority strips minority culture down. Therefore, due to this marginalization and structural discrimination of Maori, Jackson highlighted that the attitudes and practices of criminal agents were institutionally racist and
Institutional racism, maintains the unequal outcomes in the criminal justice system result from the practice, resides in the policies, procedures, operations and culture of public or private institutions – reinforcing individual prejudices and being reinforced by them in turn’(Sveinsson, n.d.). This approach was generated by the Macpherson report, Stephen Lawrence, a young black
‘’ Abolition of systemic discrimination in the CJS may leave behind ‘structural racism’: the discriminatory impact of laws, policies and practices rather than individual racist attitudes’’ (Blagg et al 2005: 12). The white susceptibilities are offended when Aboriginal people’s occurrence induces loathing and fear: their social custom, and their differences (sitting in parks, moving around as a group). In public places it is approved or considered as ‘okay’ to discriminate against Aboriginal people, for instances; Aboriginal children was rejected from shopping malls for ruptures of dress codes while young non-aboriginal youths are not, Aboriginal background adults are denied service in pubs is all regarded as being ‘okay’. Aboriginal people’s cultural values and beliefs are ignored as the Criminal justice system (CJS) enforces non-Aboriginal principles upon them. As a result, such behaviour is considered as institutionalised norms, practices and standards but not reflected as deliberate
The purpose of this paper is to examine why the justice system fails for First Nations persons and alternative rehabilitation methods used by Aboriginal people, comprised of Aboriginal people, for Aboriginal people, in hopes to rehabilitate offenders and prevent criminal behavior in the Aboriginal community from precontact to today. Through the attempts of Aboriginal people to take control of their own destiny’s in the ever going struggle to attain self-government I will examine the aims and structure of one of these alternative rehabilitation methods, the Sentencing Circle used today to address the need to return to community based “Restorative Justice Programs” in the Aboriginal community
New Zealand’s punitiveness index shows that the incarceration rate peaked at the year of neo-liberal reform, however, the rate really escalated in 2002 after punitive legalisations had passed following the introduction of penal populism (Cavadino & Dignan, 2006). This is a crucial period to explore the responses to crime after the introduction of penal populism, simultaneously the inequality that was happening as well. By 2002, New Zealand had become a neo-liberal country for over 15 years, and this shaped the different responses of penal populism with the rise of new inequalities (Cavadino & Dignan, 2006). Neo-liberal economic reforms dramatically escalated inequality in New Zealand, social conditions were declining and sections of the population became excluded from work (Cavadino & Dignan, 2006). Those most targeted by New Zealand’s prison growth are predominantly young Maori men, who are excluded from employment and education, and suffered terribly under the neo-liberal reform (Pratt,
The criminal justice system is full of inequality and disparities among race, gender, and class. From policing neighborhoods, and the ongoing war on drugs, to sentencing, there are underlying biases and discriminatory practices in the criminal justice system that impacts minority communities and groups. Fueled by stereotypes and generalizations, it is important to identify and discuss what crimes take place and who actually makes it up.
The gross over representation of indigenous people in the Australian criminal justice system (CJS) is so disturbingly evident that it is never the source of debate. Rather it is the starting point of discussions centring on the source and solutions to this prominent social, cultural and political issue. Discourse surrounds not only the economic and social disadvantage of indigenous communities, but also the systemic racism and continuing intergenerational trauma resulting for the unjust colonisation of a nation which has profited whites at the detriment to indigenous people throughout history. In respect to the currently CJS, trepidations are raised by indigenous communities around the lack of culturally diverse laws and punishments within the system. The overtly western system does not provide a viable space for indigenous
Criminal profiling, first undertaken within the nineteen-seventies, has been used throughout thousands of police investigations from bureaus all over the globe, currently some question their practicality in police investigations. This essay argues the utility of offender profiling in police investigations. Police Investigations utilize Offender and Criminal Profiling methods because it narrows the field of investigation, needs diminutive physical evidence to begin investigations and uses victimology to predict future actions of the offender.
Richard Harding, Roderic Broadhurst, Anne Ferrante, Nini Loh. 1995. Aboriginal Contact with the criminal justice system. Leichardt, NSW: Hawkins Press
To completely understand this impact of colonisation on indigenous cultures however, we must first define the meaning of the word ‘colonisation’. We will then examine the various effects, both positive and negative that colonisation has had on the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.
It is especially prominent when a police officer pulls someone over for someone that is not even against the law, which leaves the citizens confused one what they did wrong. If the officer can not prove that what they pulled them over for was against the law, then they should let the people go immediately. Sadly, the police officer did find something, “a bag of cocaine” (Iannacci). This is the worst part, because a lot of the times the officers end up finding something and the way they found it is never taken into consideration. The officer pulled these people over for a broken tail light, which in the state of North Carolina, is okay as long as one is working. What is not mentioned is that “In the absence of any other facts indicating criminal
Butcher, M. (August 2003). “Who is Maori? Who is Pakeha?” In North &South Magazine. New Zealand.
This essay intends to address the role that state agencies, both within the Criminal Justice System (CJS) and more broadly the institutions of education, employment and health, play in supporting and implementing diversionary programs for offenders with mental health problems. Mental health is clearly one of the most critical issues facing the Australian and New South Wales (NSW) CJS with research indicating that offenders with mental health problems constitute the majority of those within the prison system. The current strategies for diversion will be critically evaluated in order to determine their effectiveness with regard to the delivery and production of justice, cultural sensitivity for Indigenous Australians will also be considered. The social construction of mental illness and the associated process of stigmatisation of this particular group will be explored in conjunction to explain why society still fails to prevent the mass entry of people with mental health issues into the traditional CJS.
However Wilson (2007) argues that formal methods of social control such as the criminal justice system are merely there to control and segregate delinquents and offenders who have not had adequate socialisation, which is where social mores are learnt and when conformity is produced, and that an alternative form of social control such as restorative justice might produce more effective results. The concept of restorative justice was heavily shaped by the work of John Braithwaite (1989) who in turn was inspired by indigenous practices in New Zealand and Australia, whereby the significance of family values was recognised and introduced into criminal and restorative proceedings in helping the offender be reinstated within society (Newburn, 2007).... ... middle of paper ... ...
The accuracy and reliability of criminal statistics is something that has been of great discussion through criminology for decades. Whilst some believe that crime statistics are a misuse of time and resources, others believe that there is some use for them within the criminological community. The inaccuracies of criminal statistics are highlighted in abundance within academic articles and research, many of which highlight the main source as the dark figure of crime. Many also suggest other inconsistencies within official statistics to be influenced by law enforcement agencies and society. But whilst there is much research to suggest that criminal statistics are unreliable and of no use, there are some that suggest that this may not be entirely
The history of New Zealand begins between 800 A.D. and 1300 A.D., when the Māori people arrived from Polynesia to the mountainous island they called “Aotearoa.” The people “lived in tribal groups” fairly peacefully (Wilson). However, life began to change for the Māori people when they first came into contact with a European in 1642, when Dutch explorer Abel Tasman “discovered” the island. In 1769, “[James] Cook successfully circumnavigated and mapped the country” (History). These explorations marked the beginning of Europeanization for the young country of New Zealand. Whalers and traders soon arrived, and missionaries arrived in 1814. When the Māori met with Europeans, events followed a similar path to the colonization of America and the decimation of the native populations-- “contribution of guns…, along with European diseases, led to a steep decline in the [population of] Māori people.” (History). Consequentially, “their chieftains entered into a compact with Britain, the Treaty of Waitangi, in which they ceded sovereignty to Queen Victoria while retaining territorial rights,” in...