85 Human Rights Commission Chapter 6: Manatika The impact of colonisation and racism in criminal justice Historical over-policing of Māori The Sovereignty Wars were the forerunner to the method of policing and justice that exists today in Aotearoa New Zealand. The over-policing of Māori became a racist extension of the Sovereignty Wars designed to break Māori resistance and communities and force them to accept the dominance of the settler-colonial government. Immediately after Te Tiriti o Waitangi was signed, troops arrived in April 1840 and were instrumental in putting down a ‘threatening’ Māori crowd in the town of Kororāreka. This event was a first step in the colonial process of forcibly acquiring control over Aotearoa (Hill, 1986, 91). Ongoing interactions between Māori and the police often concerned the struggle for land and resistance to confiscation. Settlement required a police force willing to suppress Māori by any means, and legislation and policing in the mid-1800s began to focus on the violent suppression of Māori resistance and ‘uprisings’ (Hill, 2012). This became more of a reality as the settler population exploded and demographically overwhelmed tangata whenua. As Māori resisted legislative mechanisms of land alienation, the Crown used force underpinned by the threat of, or actual, violence to compel its illegitimate claim to sovereign control. Armed Police Force (1846) The Armed Police Force was established in 1846 with the express purpose of “conducting armed surveillance” within Māori communities (Hill, 2012). In addition to this purpose, early policing in settlercolonial societies enforced British values as a civilising agent of assimilation (Cunneen and Tauri, 2016, p. 67–8). In this manner, the armed patrols in Aotearoa became the all-pervading presence and power of the state (Hill, 1986, p. 95). This was the beginning of the historic and continued over-policing of Māori communities. Through the Armed Police Force and its successors, such as the Armed Constabulary, the government enforced settler control of the country, always at the expense of Māori tino rangatiratanga, self-determination and wellbeing. Parihaka (1881) In 1879, a forced survey of the Parihaka block was peacefully obstructed by Te Āti Awa. This nonviolent resistance came 40 years before Ghandi’s pacifist resistance in India. Several special Acts were passed over the next two years to try to force the people of Parihaka off their land eg, men could be arrested without warrant and could be held without trial. In 1881, Te Āti Awa prophets Te Whiti-o-Rongoma and Tohu Kākaki led a pacifist community of followers at Parihaka. The kaupapa was peaceful resistance and protest against the Crown’s confiscation of land in the Taranaki region (Binney, 2011; Ministry for Culture and Heritage, 2019; Riseborough, 2002). Many Māori, having experienced land dispossession, supported Parihaka and its cause. The government considered this particularly threatening and responded with force. Native Minister John Bryce had “long wanted to invade Parihaka” (Keenan, 2016), and so over 1500 Armed Constabulary, with huge supplies of ammunition, invaded Parihaka on 5 November 1881. The force was met with 2,000 peacefully seated Māori, singing children, and offers