DECLINE NOTED

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 73, Issue 6306, 18 November 1946, Page 4

DECLINE NOTED

IMPRISONMENT OF MAORIS FIGURES FOR LAST YEAR Maoris received into New Zealand prisons in 1936 represented 11.12 per cent of the total sentenced, and this had increased to 26.35 per cent by 1944 and stood at 20.82 per cent, or 553 last year, according to a bulletin of the Census and Statistics Department. “This discloses a somewhat disturbing trend in recent years towards a relative increase in crime among Maoris, with a welcome fall in the proportion of Maori prisoners received during 1945. As always, however, figures unqualified by relevant factors reveal only part of the story.” the report says. “The Maori population of New Zealand a rapidly growing, and therefore predominantly a young one, and it is from among the younger age-groups that the majority of lawbreakers are recruited. Funrthermore, unsettled conditions arising from the war, and a pronounced drift to the towns, with consequent greater temptation to crime, have also contributed towards swelling the figures of Maori receptions into gaol. “These considerations help to explain; but do not wholly justify the upward movement evident since 1939,” the bulletin says.