A senior Māori lawyer is sounding the alarm the Government’s tough-on-crime policies are causing prison numbers to blow out.
New figures show 42% of male inmates are on remand, up from 19% in 2013, and could overtake sentenced prisoners by 2032.
Barrister Quentin Duff (Ngāi Rangi, Te Arawa, Raukawa) has led the defence in more than 100 jury trials over 40 years,
He says the lock-them-up attitude towards punishment is creating major problems for the system and the people in it.
“Do we want out of sight, out of mind? Do we simply want to lock people up or do we want to look at alternatives? I don’t think we want to simply build super-prisons and incarcerate more people. We know statistically that ends up coming down hard on Indigenous people. This is about our attitude to punishment – what does punishment look like and does that necessarily include prison?” Duff says.
He says many people are remanded to prison because they can’t supply a bail address, and iwi and hapū groups may want to consider ways to fill that gap.
The number of people on remand peaked in 2020 to 15,375 males and 1932 females and dropped to almost 4000 in 2022. But that number is again on the rise with 13,695 males and 1725 females on remand in 2023.
The trajectory heading into 2024 is on the rise as more alleged offenders are remanded in custody, where as under the previous government, were given electronic bail.
While the number of Māori in prison has fallen over the past four years - down to 4108 people in June 2022, representing less than 1% of adult Māori - they are still over-represented and represent 53% of men in prison and 67% of women in prison in 2022.
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