Photo: 1 News, Getty Images
The myth of incarceration and how we’ve been tricked into thinking cages are real justice.
It isn't difficult to find stories about the police in New Zealand abusing their powers.
In Aotearoa, we like to think of ourselves as pretty tame compared to the likes of the US and Australia.
In those countries, there are blatantly racist police actions caught on camera all the time - the murder of George Floyd being one of the most widely referenced.
After all, every single child in prison in ‘Australia’s’ Northern Territory is indigenous - we can’t be that bad.
But we are ‘that’ bad. We have more fatal police shootings per population than Australia does, and their police are constantly armed.
It can be hard to accept, especially when the media is telling you that Tamatha Paul is crazy for suggesting an alternative.
In the last 10 years, New Zealand police have shot and killed people 11 times more often than England and Wales.
The New Zealand Police have shot and killed 41 people since 1990 - this is 8 people per 10 million compared to England and Wales’ 0.3, and 2.4 in Australia.
Australia’s police are routinely armed and New Zealand’s are not, yet ours still manage to kill at least 3.3 times as many people.
By this metric, New Zealand’s police are not some of the “best in the world,” when they kill people 11 times as often than a country with 55 million more people.
Earlier this year, the police did the dirty work for our politicians and targeted peace activists in Ōtautahi.
Peace Action Ōtautahi protested outside and on the roof of the NIOA weapons manufacturing warehouse in Christchurch.
In response, the police issued a ‘non-association’ order between the pair of activists who scaled the building, and then used University of Canterbury CCTV cameras to spy on them.
The pair, while setting up chairs together for a talk on the dirtiness of the police in New Zealand, were arrested in the middle of the night for the alleged breach.
Putting ‘victims first’ by increasing prison sentences means nothing when 83% of victims say that the current justice system doesn’t make them feel safe, something is wrong.
Increasing prison sentences with next to no rehabilitation services in a system driven by violence does nothing when half of those in prison weren’t in paid work beforehand.
When the Ministry of Justice itself says that recent increases in violence are due to economic pressures and violence against those on low-income is up 43%, it’s hard to have faith in the police, justice, or corrections systems.
It isn’t importing the US’ fear of police to us just for a laugh. It’s real.
The ‘Independent Police Conduct Authority’ is not subject to information requests like the rest of the government departments, and is more secretive than the secret service.
In the last three years alone, the number of complaints against police rose by 64%, but they decided to ignore 25% of complaints to get on top of the work-load.
From what was found out:
- An 11-year-old child was taken to a mental health facility by police, and injected with anti-psychotic drugs after being falsely identified as a missing patient in her 20s.
- An Auckland police officer who admitted to assaulting two teenagers fled the scene and was granted discharge without conviction.
- Police are more likely to use force against Māori during arrests according to the Human Rights Commission.
- The police officer who was “unjustified” in shooting dead unarmed Kaoss Price was not convicted.
- Police were found to be “unjustified” in throwing a young person several metres and dragging them by their hand.
- A 15 year old had his jaw broken in half and punched in the head during an arrest.
Footage showed the police dumping Alo Ngata’s unresponsive body in a cell face-first.
If police don’t kill the person, they go to prison. We have more people in prison than the OECD average at 170 people per 100,000.
Almost 36% of people that come out of prison go back within two-years, and 57% reoffend almost immediately.
Māori are prosecuted 11 times more than Pākehā for the same crimes, and an RNZ report found “bias” and “structural racism” in the police.
The Minister of Police disagreed with the evidence, but that doesn’t just make it untrue.
When we look at who benefits from the prison system, it becomes clear why it’s kept in place.
The government’s Waikeria prison upgrade is being built with Honeywell, which is a company that has supplied the Israeli military since 2000. They have contributed to the destruction of hundreds of schools and hospitals in Gaza, as well as the genocide of countless Palestinian lives.
If we question the prison and justice system, it brings into question the foundations of capitalism: colonialism, imperialism, and conquest.
The cost of hosting a single person in prison is crazy enough as it is, and most of them don’t get rehabilitated.
It costs $423 per day, which is $154,395 per prisoner, per year. All that happens in prison is people make connections while their hatred and distrust in the system grows.
The Waikeria prison upgrade of an additional 1400 beds will increase the total cost of holding people in prison by at least $216 million to around $1.5 billion per year.
How is this at all working, and how does increasing these penalties and costs help anybody?
In New Zealand, we prosecute people for benefit fraud ten times as often than we do for tax fraud.
“70% of benefit fraudsters get a prison sentence, compared to only 18% of tax fraudsters.”
Tom Pearce, People Against Prisons
This is not sustainable, this is not working, and it is clear why it remains this way despite the governing parties changing every three or so years.
Capitalism needs people in poverty to legitimise the oppressive system and blame someone for all our problems.
This is why the corporate media and our career politicians kicked up such a stink about Tamatha Paul’s criticisms of police.
They don’t want to legitimise any critique, because they know full-well where it will lead.