The Amplification of Maori Crime: Cultural and Economic Barriers to Equal Justice in New Zealand

John Forster and Peter D. Ramsay , 'Migration, Education and Occupation: The Maori Population 1936-1956', in John Forster (ed)., Social Process in New Zealand, (Milford, N.Z., Longman Paul, 1969), pp. 198-232. This article (pp. 220-1) indicates that between 1951 and 1961 the Maori population showed an increasing tendency to be employed in labouring and related occupations; 66.74 per cent of Maoris being so employed in 1951, and 78.4 per cent by 1961. More recent (1966) census data reveals a similar trend.

See, for example, Mary Schumacher , Violent Offending ( Wellington, N.Z., Government Printer, 1971), pp. 32-8. Also S.W. Slater and W.L. Pearce , A Limited Study Comparing Maoris and non-Maoris Appearing in the Children's Court in 1960 (Wellington, N.Z., Joint Committee on Young Offenders Research Report, Government Printer, 1963).

Probably the clearest outline of such differences is to be found in Task Force Report: Science and Technology, President's Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice (Washington D.C., 1967), pp. 55-64.

Formulae for calculation of x2 and C were taken from Sidney Siegel , Non-Parametric Statistics for the Behavioural Sciences (New York, McGraw Hill, 1956). C was corrected for its upper limit using the formula r — 1, where r represents the number of rows. r

Data for tables 3, 4 and 5 were derived from Justice Department , Crime in New Zealand (Wellington, N.Z., Government Printer, 1968), p. 390. Data appearing in tables 3, 4 and 5 are drawn from a study of an unnamed Magistrate's Court between 7 August and 3 November 1967.

The most comprehensive article on this point is that of Jerome Carlin and Jan Howard , 'Legal Representation and Class Justice', U.C.L.A. Law Review (Vol. 12, 1965), pp. 381-431.

After Schumacher , op. cit., pp. 35-6. Data appearing in table 6 relate to all males convicted by New Zealand Magistrate's Courts, during 1968, of any of eight serious offences: Rape, Attempted Rape, Robbery, Aggravated Robbery, Assault on a Female, Assault, and Wounding with Intent.

Ibid.

Justice Department, op. cit., p. 269.

Schumacher, op. cit., p. 35.

For a full discussion of the implications of this see Peter Berger and Thomas K. Luckmann , The Social Construction of Reality (London, Penguin Books Ltd., 1971), pp. 70-5.

The best example is the study by David Sudnow, 'Normal Crimes: Sociological Features of the Penal Code in a Public Defender Office', Social Problems (Vol. 12, 1964), pp. 255-76.

Joan Metge , The Maoris of New Zealand (London, Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1967), p. 169.

Indeed, the foreword to the publication specifically points out that: 'Early drafts of this work were brought to the notice of the Chief Justice .... and other Judges, and Stipendiary Magistrates.'

Justice Department, op. cit., pp. 397-8.

Justice Department, op. cit., p. 368.

Another example of this pattern of reasoning can be seen in the same publication, in relation to violent offending: 'It has been suggested from time to time that cultural or racial factors are present in the incidence of violence. Certainly estimates of offending by race indicate that such influences apply and that Islanders and Maoris offend against the person at a much greater rate than does the European of New Zealand.' (Justice Department, op. cit., p. 208).

Metge, op. cit., p. 169. Italics are added.

Jack D. Douglas , The Social Meanings of Suicide ( Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1967), p. 186.

Ibid., p. 200.

These points do not exhaust the ways in which cross-cultural misinterpretation prejudices the chances of Maori defendants. Joan Metge , in A New Maori Migration (London, Athlone Press , 1964), pp. 168-9, has argued that some Maori reactions to fear and uncertainty are often associated in the European mind with feelings of guilt — even though these are not the states they reflect.

Patrick T. O'Malley , 'The Influence of Cultural Factors on Maori Crime Rates', in Stephen Webb and John Collette (eds.), New Zealand Society: Contemporary Perspectives (Sydney, John Wiley and Sons, 1972).

For a summary of data see Dane and Mary Archer , 'Race, Identity, and the Maori People', Journal of the Polynesian Society. (Vol. 79, 1970), pp. 201-18.