Maori offending ‘shameful’

Press, 21 July 1988, Page 14

Maori offending ‘shameful’

PA Whangarei The level of Maori criminal offending in New Zealand is shameful and unacceptable for a civilised country, the Opposition spokesman on police, Mr John Banks, said yesterday. Mr Banks made the comment in a speech to the Dunedin police combined investigation unit. Quoting statistics supplied by the police, Mr Banks said many young Maori were, on release from prison, “no more or less than unguided missiles looking for criminal action.”

“In my home province of Northland, we have the highest unemployment in the country, and every second young Maori is on the scrapheap. Very significantly we have the highest level of Maori criminal offending in New Zealand,” Mr Banks said. He said a visit to any Northland district court was “a very depressing experience.” “As one young unemployed Maori leaves the dock, another immediately steps in,” Mr Banks said.

"The statistical correlation between Maori unemployment and criminal behaviour is stark in its reality. “I find it disgusting that in our so called caring and compassionate society, we accept this as something that is part of life.”

Mr Banks said that in

Northland, seven out of 10 people locked up last year for violence were Maori, six out of every 10 locked up for sexual offences were Maori, and 60 per cent of all dishonesty was attributed to Maori people. “For a contemporary’ and civilised society, the level of Maori criminal offending in this country is shameful and unacceptable,” he said. In Northland, 900 young Maori were now on Access programmes, and 45 per cent of them could neither read nor write, he said. . ’

“Sadly, too many Maoris spend more time in jail than they have at school.” , He said the average unemployed Maori person in Northland was not the slightest bit interested in the legal claim for 70 per cent of the South Island. “They want jobs now,” Mr Banks said. “I say to the Maori fishing and land claimants, the best prospects for young people will come when there is parental involvement in their education and when there is parentage that is embued with commitment, responsibility and discipline. “The Government can go on setting up working parties, huis and Royal Commissions until the cows come home,” he said “but action in the form of work is what is needed, not words.”