The Understanding Policing Delivery report, released today, has found widespread and systemic racial bias in how the New Zealand Police operate. University of Auckland criminology lecturer and People Against Prisons Aotearoa spokesperson Emmy Rākete says this comes as no surprise.

“This report shows what we have known for decades: the police are a racist, violent, occupying force in Māori communities,” says Rākete.

Among other findings, the report found that police were 11% more likely to prosecute Māori than Pākehā who had committed the same offence. Māori were the majority of victims of police taser discharges, and were more likely than other ethnic groups to complain about racist police conduct.

“Since Moana Jackson’s He Whaipaanga Hou report in 1987, the Crown has been acknowledging and apologising for the racism of its law enforcement agencies. These apologies are all worthless insults to the Māori people as long as the Crown never actually stops its racist violence.”

“This government tells us that there is no money to build state housing, to run schools, to pay doctors, or do anything that could actually prevent the root causes of crime. Then Luxon tells us there are billions of dollars to waste on tax cuts for landlords and an American-style megaprison in Waikeria. The rich get billions, and the poor get bullets.”

“The cops are the armed enforcers of capitalist racism. Māori don’t need more reports into police racism: we need social and economic justice and the rangatiratanga promised to our ancestors.”

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