It's also the most Maori imprisoned in a year since 2009, when an extra 1000 were convicted of crimes.
There's no such thing as a bad baby. They're not born like that. We've got to get to the cause of the problem.
Hastings District councillor Henare O'Keefe said the approach to locking people away must change.
"If prison was working, we wouldn't be building more. They're not working. Simple as that," he said.
"They say they rehabilitate but they just make better criminals."
The prison population has risen to more than 10,000 inmates - the highest it has ever been.
Mr O'Keefe, the chairman of Te Aranga Marae in Flaxmere, said the marae often took in former inmates to rehabilitate them.
He said the marae had a "99.9 per cent success rate" at reintegrating former prisoners back into the community and reducing reoffending completely.
Mr O'Keefe - who with his wife has fostered more than 200 children over the past two decades - said parenting was the most important factor to reduce later offending.
"You have to take a good look at the parenting - the consistency and quality of it," he said.
"There's no such thing as a bad baby. They're not born like that. We've got to get to the cause of the problem."
Howard League chief executive and Hawke's Bay Today columnist Mike Williams was "gobsmacked" on hearing the figures.
"It's a problem that over 50 per cent of the jail population is Maori, we know that it's been like that for a while," he said. "[These] figures show that this is actually getting worse."
"It's a tragedy, it's an ongoing tragedy."
Mr Williams said he thought the main drivers for the rate were high levels of illiteracy, and unemployment. Drugs could also be a factor.
More emphasis needed to be placed on education, and the Government needed to do more to get Maori into jobs.
This was echoed by veteran Napier social justice activist Pat Magill, who said solutions needed to be found in the community - not in prisons.
"We can do a hell of a lot better if we work together."
Auckland University senior law lecturer Khylee Quince said the higher imprisonment rate was attributable to a number of factors.
"Maori offenders often receive harsher outcomes because of [previous convictions] even when faced with the same conviction as a non-Maori offender," Ms Quince said.
"Having said that I still think there would be an element of systemic bias."
Justice Minister Amy Adams said tackling over-representation of Maori in the justice system was a priority and an ongoing concern.
"While there has been a significant reduction in total crime over the past five years for both Maori and non-Maori, these reductions have not been as large for Maori when compared to non-Maori. This means that Maori over-representation has not improved," she said.
Nationwide last year, Maori were imprisoned at a higher rate than any year since records began in 1980 - 17.3 per cent.
Fifty-six per cent of all people imprisoned in 2016 were Maori, also the highest figure ever recorded.
"There is no one silver bullet, however we remain committed to addressing this issue and focusing on initiatives that will make a difference," Ms Adams said.
She said the Government had implemented "a range of programmes and initiatives" which aimed to address this.
These included the Youth Crime Action Plan, restorative justice services with Maori values, Maori and Pacifica Youth Courts and iwi panels for low level offending as a form of alternative resolution.
