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National | Corrections

Urgent Waitangi Tribunal hearing for high number of Māori in Prison

The Waitangi Tribunal has granted an urgent application regarding Māori offending and high recidivism rates. Retired probation officer Tom Hemopo and members of his iwi filed the application and claim the Crown has failed to reduce the number of Māori in prison and high reoffending rates.

Hemopo of Ngāti Maniapoto, Rongomaiwahine and Ngāti Kahungunu worked for Corrections for 25 years before retiring in 2011.

He says: “If I am right then for those people and their whanau, there is imminent and perhaps irreversible prejudice. I suppose what I am saying is that this is not a Tom Hemopo claim. This is an all us (Māori) claim.”

Although Māori only make 15% of the New Zealand population, they make up the highest percentage of all convictions.

Half of all men and 63% of all women in prison are Māori.  A 2009 Corrections report found that five years after release from prison, 77% of Māori offenders were reconvicted, and 58% were back in prison.

In granting the application for an urgent hearing Judge Savage, the Deputy Chairperson of the Waitangi Tribunal, stated:

“The offending and reoffending figures in the evidence are undisputed, stark and cause for considerable concern.  It is not as though those figures are new.  Māori offending and reoffending rates have been well known for a very long time. If the applicant is right, and I express no view on that, then many young Māori men and women are in the Corrections system or will enter it tomorrow, next month or next year.”

The claim requests that the Tribunal make findings about how the Crown has breached the principles of the Treaty.

Hemopo says, “It’s simple. I want Corrections to start using their budget to target and try to reduce Māori reoffending.”

A hearing to consider the claim will be held in 2016.