Aotearoa has a disproportionately high imprisonment rate.
We have 170 people per 100,000 in prison compared to the OECD average of 147.
The Ministry of Justice’s own statistics outline how 35.8% of people that go into prison go back within two years of release.
Within these figures, 57% re-offend within two years of release.
So why is an incarceratory justice system that has been in place for over 200 years still not working? Do we just need more prisons?
An independent 'Understanding Police Delivery' report found “bias” and “structural racism” in the police force, leading to a Māori prosecution rate of 11% higher than European New Zealanders.
But we didn’t need another report to tell us this - we knew it already.
It also found that Māori were more likely to be prosecuted for the same crimes as Pākehā, but the Minister for Police, Mark Mitchell, doesn’t “think there is systemic bias in the police at all.”
"Our people don't need any more apologies, our people don't need any more reports, our people need social and economic justice and we need the rangatiratanga that was promised to us in Te Tiriti," said Dr Emmy Rākete, a lecturer of criminology at the University of Auckland and spokesperson for People Against Prisons Aotearoa.
The ethnicity of adults in prison per 100 prisoners has Māori on 52 and Pākehā on 32.
“Māori men aged 17-40 are just 3 percent of New Zealand’s population but make up 34 percent of use of force incidents by police,” RNZ Report.
It costs $423 a day to hold someone in prison, which is $154,395 per year.
The number of people murdered by police since 2004 is also heavily skewed.
14 Māori people have been shot dead, 11 Pākehā, two Pasifika and four from other communities.
So, why do we maintain this?
There are a number of factors behind the idea that prisons work. Profit and money is the main one.
Successive governments, in desperate attempts to survive the four-year parliamentary term and get themselves elected, choose to fearmonger.
It costs more money to transform a profit-focused system into a people-focused one than the $423 a day to trap a prisoner, so they simply choose not to touch it. Labour change a few little things like three strikes or the number of prisoners, but neglect to address the cause of crime: poverty.
They know there is no long-term guarantee for transformation, so they bicker about culture war issues like transgender bathrooms and wokeness to distract us from class issues like this one.
It's all about money.
The prison-centric justice system serves the interests of profit.
The Waikeria mega prison upgrade is being overseen and constructed by Honeywell, who are directly involved with Israeli weapons manufacturing.
Honeywell built the bombs and guided missiles that Israel is using to bomb schools. They’ve been supplying the Israeli government since 2000.
This allows the government as an entity to support Israel’s profit-driven genocide in occupied Palestine while distancing itself publicly.
Prisons and ‘tough on crime’ rhetoric make disillusioned voters feel like Māori, dole-bludgers and gangs are to blame for everything that’s going wrong.
This happens while corporations and employers steal our wages and pit different, pretend groups of workers against ourselves.
The myth of the middle class serves this well, as different ‘factions’ of the working class feel as though they’re better than others because of how much money they make, regardless of the fact that we all sell our labour for a wage.
As long as our overwhelmingly capitalist parliament exists, they’ll continue to serve the interests of profit.