Tuesday, September 01, 2015

Waitangi Tribunal claim against state for failing to reduce Maori offending

My simple understanding of the Waitangi Tribunal was that it existed to put right misdeeds perpetrated on Maori regarding land. So I checked the official description:

The Waitangi Tribunal was established in 1975 by the Treaty of Waitangi Act 1975. The Tribunal is a permanent commission of inquiry charged with making recommendations on claims brought by Māori relating to actions or omissions of the Crown that potentially breach the promises made in the Treaty of Waitangi.

Claims have become increasingly imaginative as understandings of what the Treaty "promised" have developed.

Here's an interesting one. A claim against the state for failure to stop Maori offending and reoffending:

Tribunal Claim: Too Many Māori in Prison And Reoffending
31 August 2015
Waitangi Tribunal Claim Filed Against Corrections Alleges Too Many Māori in Prison And Reoffending
Tom Hemopo, a retired probation officer, has today filed an urgent claim to the Waitangi Tribunal on behalf of himself and his iwi alleging Crown failures to reduce the number of Maori in prison and high reoffending rates.
The ‘Corrections Claim’ targets the Department of Corrections which has failed to reduce high rates of reoffending by Māori and has the support of two Hawkes Bay iwi entities - Ngāti Kahungunu Iwi Incorporated and Ngāti Pāhauwera Development Trust.
More
Following on from this it isn't difficult to envisage many more claims against the state eg the failure of CYF to reduce the number of Maori children in care.

In fact using Youth Court appearances as an indicator, the number of Maori offenders has halved since 2008. 

1 comment:

Brendan McNeill said...

Perhaps he is arguing for the reintroduction of the death penalty? I believe it is effective in reducing recidivism.