HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION | A FAIR GO FOR A L L ? to non-Mäori. Between 11 per cent and 13 per cent of against justice and three times more likely to be convicted convicted Mäori receive sentences of imprisonment, of property offences.173 as opposed to 7-9 per cent of Europeans, a significant difference. The Corrections report concludes that although the effects of bias may be small when other factors are discounted, the high rate of Mäori imprisonment indicates this bias may have a cumulative effect. If there is a dearth of good-quality research to interpret the statistics and offer a more nuanced picture of the causes of Mäori offending,174 this is even more the case for Pacific peoples.175 In his research into Mäori conviction rates for domestic violence, researcher G. Raumati Hook also Over-representation of Mäori in the Criminal Justice System compared the conviction rates across a series of offences also discusses the effect of detainees not co-operating between Päkehä and Pacific peoples. His comparison shows with Police. A 1998 study suggests Mäori and Police that the rates for male assaults on females were more than hold negative attitudes towards each other and Mäori five times that of Päkehä; the rate for traffic violations and perceive Police as biased against them. These attitudes may non-violent sex offences was approximately twice as high, decrease detainees’ willingness to co-operate with Police while drug-related offences were broadly similar.176 Hook and in turn increases the likelihood that the Police officer argues that, as for Mäori, the role of possible systemic bias will proceed with charges. in the lead-up to arrest and conviction needs to be much Another important factor to consider in examining better understood. structural discrimination in the justice system is the social This has implications for the policing of areas with large and economic conditions for Mäori that tend to increase Pacific communities. Targeted police action has left a the risk of involvement with crime. Social and economic legacy of mistrust in Pacific communities. Webb traces, inequality and adverse early-life environmental factors for for example, the history of “Dawn Raids” against Pacific Mäori are well-documented. The extent to which these peoples carried out by the Police and immigration officials inequalities increase risk of involvement with crime is not in the 1970s , a practice out of proportion with the actual fully known. Yet there is strong evidence of correlation incidence of offending. The raids were humiliating and between the two factors: bias within the justice system insulting to Pacific communities and may be a factor in and increased risk due to inequitable social and economic Pacific peoples’ mistrust of Police.177 In the present, barriers conditions. Within this interplay, the existence of one to responsiveness to Pacific peoples may include limited factor makes the other more likely. Over-representation of language ability on the part of Police and/or prior experience Mäori in the Criminal Justice System concludes that early or perception by Pacific communities that they might suffer intervention in health, social support and education is unfair treatment or racism.178 the most effective way to combat the high rate of Mäori imprisonment. However, the report makes no specific recommendations about addressing bias. Pacific peoples in the criminal justice system There have been some initiatives in the criminal justice system to incorporate Pacific values into the existing system and address both the high incidence of violent offending: • in 2002 the New Zealand Police published a strategy to Pacific peoples are also disproportionately represented in increase Police responsiveness to the Pacific community. the criminal justice system, though not to the same extent The report noted that the main concern for Pacific as Mäori. Pacific peoples were estimated to make up seven peoples is violent offending; that Pacific peoples are per cent of New Zealand’s population in 2010,170 but made over-represented as violent offenders and as victims of up 9.21 per cent of all people arrested and 11.31 per cent violence179 of all prisoners. 171 In 2005, 48 per cent of Pacific offenders were sentenced for violent offences – this compared with 38 per cent and 25 per cent respectively for Mäori and European offenders. 172 Pacific men are seven times more likely to be convicted of violence than other men, four and a half times more likely to be convicted of offences • following the model of the Rangatahi Courts, a Pasifika Youth Court that sits at a Pacific Cultural Centre in Mangere has been established (this is outlined in the following case-study) 37