Press release - [06:00am 10/05/2017] - For Immediate Use
PRESS RELEASE: No Pride in Prisons

No Pride in Prisons condemns ‘Māori prisons’

Calls by the Labour, Green, and Māori Parties for ‘Māori prisons’ would be deeply harmful to Māori communities, says prisoner advocacy organisation No Pride in Prisons.

‘Anybody with an understanding of Māori culture knows that kaupapa Māori and the prison system contradict each other. Prior to British colonisation, there was absolutely no recorded history of any hapū or iwi using incarceration to resolve situations where harm has been done,’ says spokesperson Emilie Rākete.

‘Prisons were forced on Māori society through colonisation, so imagining a prison based on “Māori values” is simply ridiculous.’

Since 1997, the Department of Corrections has run ‘tikanga based programmes’ in New Zealand prisons. Despite the existence of these programmes for more than a decade, the proportion of Māori among the prison population has increased.

‘People are not in prison just because they are alienated from Māori culture,’ says Rākete. ‘People are in prison because economic racism has forced generations of Māori into poverty, producing misery in our communities.’

‘It is illegal to discriminate against people seeking employment or housing because they are Māori, but it is not illegal to discriminate against ex-prisoners. The mass incarceration of Māori upholds economic racism. A so-called “Māori prison” would be no different.’

Rākete says that No Pride in Prisons believes an approach to justice that honours tikanga Māori means abolishing prisons and implementing community justice based on traditional principles. The organisation uses historical examples from iwi and hapū as a guide for what a world without prisons would look like.

‘Prisons are a tool of colonialism, imposed on Māori through military violence. They cannot be run for the benefit of the people they have been established to oppress.’

‘Teaching waiata to prisoners does nothing whatsoever to address the real causes of imprisonment.’

ENDS

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