Police Perceptions of Maori - Rethinking Crime and Punishment

(factors) in a set of data, was carried out. It showed that either a two factor or a one
factor solution could be considered as best representing the data. The two factor
solution 14 produced the two clusters of items shown in Table 10 below.
Table 10
Two clusters of items from a factor analysis of 9 items relating to
Maori political aspirations showing the amount of variance 15
associated with each item with each cluster; N=628
Items R squared with:
Own cluster = Other cluster =
Cluster 1: Cluster 1 Cluster 2
Give Maori back ancestral lands
taken by the Crown .50 .30
Give Maori guardianship of native plants .58 .50
Develop a separate justice system for Maori .42 .07
Be more responsive to cultural difference in
the justice system .54 .22
Restore Maori fishing rights .67 .27
Own cluster = Other cluster =
Cluster 2 Cluster 2 Cluster 1
Settle Waitangi Treaty claims .45 .32
Honour the Maori language .65 .20
Respect and preserve Maori customs .69 .16
Improve the social and economic
condition of the Maori people .50 .20
The two clusters in Table 10 could be interpreted as pointing to a difference in their
acceptability to different people. It is possible that the first cluster represents items on
which there were a variety of different opinions whereas the second cluster represents
items which were regarded as part of what has been accepted by most New Zealanders.
This interpretation is certainly supported by the finding that, on average, 65% of the
sample disagreed with the cluster 1 items while only 12% disagreed on average with
the cluster 2 items. On the other hand, it is important to recognise that the two
clusters were not totally independent of one another; both clusters were moderately
correlated with one another (r=0.60). Furthermore all the items can be seen as having
a relationship with the single main factor 16 as shown in Table 11 below and this factor
accounted for 95% of the variance in the correlation matrix.
Table 11
Relationship among 9 items relating to Maori political aspirations as
shown by the loadings on the first factor 17 ; N=628
Item
Factor loading
Restore Maori fishing rights .72
Give Maori back ancestral lands
14 This was derived from a principal component cluster analysis which is similar to the principal
component factor analysis but is used for separating out distinct clusters of items.
15 The variance is a measure of the proportion of variability in the data that can be attributed, in
this instance, to the cluster where the total amount of variance is 1.00. Thus R-squared = .50
indicates that about half the variability in the item on ancestral lands goes with the other items
in the first cluster.
16 The first unrotated principal component for the principal components analysis.
17 The factor loading can vary from 0 to 1.00. The larger it is, the greater the extent to which
each item is being responded to in a common way.
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