Maori almost 5 times more likely to be serving a sentence or order

According to the New Zealand Herald;

There are currently 9131 beds catering a muster of about 8400 prisoners, which is forecast to rise to 12,500 by 2018.

Putting aside the huge forecast increase, offenders in custody make up only a small percent of those serving sentences or orders.

According to Corrections;
The average number of offenders on community sentences and orders being managed on any given day was 44,893 at the end of March 2010.

44 percent or 19,753 of the people serving a sentence or order are Maori.



The Maori 15-64 year-old population is around 400,000 therefore 49 per 1,000 Maori are serving a sentence or order.

25,140 people serving sentences are non-Maori. The non-Maori 15-64 population is around 2,500,000. So 10 per 1,000 non-Maori are serving a sentence or order.

The likelihood of Maori serving a sentence is almost 5 times greater than for non-Maori. On reporting this to my other half he asked, quite guilelessly, why?

He doesn't ask questions if he doesn't want an answer. So, off the top of my head I offered:

Maori are poorer and get into more financial strife. Unpaid fines escalate.

Maori get into more shtook with substance and alcohol abuse.

Maori have higher rates of mental ill health often a factor in offending.

Maori have fewer stable two parent families which act as a defence to crime.

Maori are targeted more?

On this last point I am thinking about a book just published that posits the war on drugs is really a war on African Americans. It would appear that the author, an attorney, believes many young black men are 'fitted up'.

According to federal figures, blacks and whites use drugs at a roughly equal rate in percentage terms. In terms of raw numbers, whites are far and away the biggest users -- and dealers -- of illegal drugs.

So why aren't cops kicking their doors in? Why aren't their sons pulled over a dozen times in nine months? Why are black men 12 times likelier to be jailed for drugs than white ones? Why aren't white communities robbed of their fathers, brothers, sons?

It is unthinkable that NZ police would have a culture like US cops (if indeed there is one culture spread across so many different states and populations). And it is equally unthinkable that there isn't some degree of institutionalised racism operating in the NZ police and justice departments.

But it is a constant source of sadness to me that too many Maori experience any or all of the above precursors for crime and that I don't see this state of affairs changing in the next few years or even decades.