New Zealand : Maori prison rates at record levels

This week, the Government announced it’s putting 1800 new beds in New Zealand prisons at the cost of $1 billion.

Over half of these will end up being filled by Māori men.

Māori make up only 14.6 percent of New Zealand’s population, but a staggering 51 percent of its prison population.

The high number of Māori in prison can be directly linked to the endemic poverty within Māori society, but where does this poverty come from?

Māori Party co-leader Marama Fox told Newshub that inter-generational poverty can be directly linked to the displacement of Maori during the land wars of the 1860s.

“Māori have experienced poverty since colonisation. Legislation forced Māori into poverty in order to acquire land,” she said.

“So the taking of land from Māori can be directly linked to the poverty that is creating today’s high prison rate.”

Historian Vincent O’Malley has extensively researched the land wars (New Zealand Wars), and especially the invasion of the Waikato for his new book The Great War for New Zealand.

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