Police Perceptions of Maori - Rethinking Crime and Punishment

for Maori for non Maori Same Know
% % % %
Dealing with the general population 7 2 84 7
Dealing with Maori offenders 11 24 56 9
Dealing with Maori victims 2 36 50 11
Dealing with abusive comments
about race or colour 34 4 50 13
Dealing with deaths 41 9 39 11
* Note: Percentages sum across rows. 'Don't Know' and 'No Responses' have been combined.
Table 8 shows that there was overall agreement that dealing with the general
population was equally easy or difficult for both Maori and non Maori. In dealing with
Maori offenders and victims, about half the respondents thought there was no
difference but one in four said it was more difficult for non Maori to deal with Maori
offenders and over a third thought it was more difficult for non Maori to deal with
Maori victims. When dealing with abusive comments about race or colour, a half saw
no difference but a third thought this was more difficult for Maori officers.
And, Maori officers were seen as having greater difficulty in dealing with deaths by
approximately 40% of respondents. Several respondents commented that it was hard
for Maori to handle situations involving a dead body. Some suggested that this was
partly related to concerns about the need to respect Maori protocol when the death
involved a Maori person. In contrast, the following quotes indicate some of the views
about the advantages of being Maori:
Knowledge of cultural issues, especially knowing Maori protocol about death,
is important. This is especially so in working with Maori victims and
witnesses. It also makes for good communication in getting information that
leads to solving offences.
Knowing whakapapa and tikanga can help you relate to people - it gives you
an edge.
Police officers' attitudes
Two questions were designed to explore police officers' own views about Maori. The
first group of 9 items asked about the extent respondents agreed with aspects of
current Maori aspirations. For technical reasons, responses to the second set of items
have had to be discarded from the analysis. 12
The responses to items reflecting possible Maori aspirations are listed in Table 9.
12 The second set of 7 items were an attempt to parallel items from a scale developed in the US
(the Modern Racism Scale; McConahay, 1986) which listed a number of items that might
reflect the views of those opposed to Maori aspirations and which were, except for the first
item, likely to be answered in the opposite direction from the first group. Although the spread
of responses to the five point scale of agreement to these items was satisfactory, correlations
between the two sets were mildly positive. This means that many of those who agreed to pro-
Maori items also agreed to anti-Maori items. The only reasonable explanation for this is that
many respondents continued to use the scale as if all the items were in the same direction of
positivity. Thus, the second set of seven items have been excluded from further analysis as the
responses have to be regarded as unreliable.
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