Revealed: Scepticism of police Turning of the Tide after previous major Māori strategy fails to meet targets

Police have launched a new strategy to reduce Māori re-offending rates 25 per cent by 2025. Photo / File

Police have failed to meet five out of seven of their own targets to cut Māori re-offending - a low success rate which has raised doubts over their new strategy to do better.

Police launched the Turning of the Tide strategy in 2012 and set goals to slash stubbornly high Māori crime and road safety statistics by 2018.

This month they re-launched the strategy as Te Huringa o Te Tai with new targets, including a 25 per cent reduction in Māori reoffending rates and an increase in trust and confidence to 90 per cent.

While calling the previous strategy a "success", the newly launched document did not list the previous targets and results, which showed that over the six years Māori reoffending rates had actually increased, while for non-Māori they went down.

These performance results were released upon request to the Herald, and showed police had met just two out of seven targets.

Police had also dropped two of the original targets - repeat victim proportions and fatal and serious rates - citing a change in the way data was recorded.

By June last year, police aimed for a 20 per cent decrease in the proportion of repeat youth and adult offenders who were Māori.

But things worsened - the Māori proportion of repeat youth offenders jumped from 57 to 62 per cent, with the adult proportion rising from 44 to 47 per cent.

Another aim was to get a 10 per cent drop in the proportion of first-time offenders who were Māori.

This was achieved for adult offenders, which reduced from 28 to 20 per cent, but not for Māori youth, which only decreased from 44 to 43 per cent.

Justice advisor Julia Whaipooti said she was skeptical about the latest strategy, which came hot on the heels of armed police patrols entering predominantly Māori communities. Photo / File

The Turning of the Tide strategy was hailed upon its release in 2012, with Police Commissioner Mike Bush recognising there was bias in the police force against Māori and vowing to address it.

But little has changed since then regarding the statistics.

Since 1980, Māori have consistently made up more than half of the prison population, and the figures are even more alarming at a youth level, with 66 per cent of those under 18 years of age arrested in 2018 being Māori.

Overall Māori make up about 15 per cent of the general population.

Julia Whaipooti, a member of the Safe and Effective Justice Advisory Group appointed by Justice Minister Andrew Little, said she was sceptical about the latest strategy, which came hot on the heels of armed police patrols entering predominantly Māori communities.

"It is the same strategy, rehashed and shined up, and it is a bit hollow when they are undertaking actions like armed patrols that are harmful to Māori communities."

One of the original targets was to have Māori satisfaction, confidence and trust in police at record highs by 2018.

The original Turning of the Tide targets. Photo / Police

Satisfaction had dropped two percentage points to 80 per cent.

Meanwhile, trust and confidence had increased from 66 to 70 per cent, but still well below the overall rate of 79 per cent. The new target was 90 per cent by 2025.

Whaipooti said it was one thing to have a written target, but police actions continued to undermine that trust.

The newly released strategy recognised Māori were most risk from harm from social and economic disadvantage, and built on co-design initiatives, including Te Pae Oranga (iwi/Community Panels). Māori Responsiveness Managers had also been introduced into all districts, and police given greater flexibility to address specific community needs.

The Turning of the Tide performance results at June 2018. Photo / Police

Whaipooti said it was positive to see these focused on, but she would like to see them broadened and for Māori to take a leading role.

"Community justice panels need to be run by the community, but right now police are still the gateway."

Chester Borrows, chair of the Safe and Effective Justice advisory group, and a former police officer and National MP, said more focus needed to be placed on preventing crime occurring in the first place.

"It is good to see police working with iwi and community groups, but there is no mention of other agencies.

"The things that drive offending include a lack of education, poor health and housing, lack of work and opportunity. These government departments need to get out of their silos and work together."

Borrows said it was also positive to see further recognition of police bias against Māori, and that needed to be addressed to build trust.

"In our travels around the country it was very clear from Māori groups relations with police needed to be genuine, and they needed to work together to build that trust."

Chester Borrows, chair of the Safe and Effective Justice advisory group, said government agencies needed to work more together, not in silos. Photo / File

National's police spokesperson Brett Hudson said not meeting targets showed there was work to do.

"What doesn't get measured gets forgotten – and by removing targets the Government is giving up on tangible and meaningful results for some of New Zealand's most vulnerable.

"I sought a commitment from the Police Commissioner that the targets implemented were focused on removing actual offending and on reducing victimisations as well."

Police Minister Stuart Nash has not responded to a request for comment.

A police spokeswoman said while many of the targets were not met, there was still a slowing and reducing rate of offending by Māori and victimisation of Māori in some areas.

Turning of the Tide?

• Target: A 10 per cent decrease in the proportion of first-time offenders who are Māori.
Result: Not met for youth - dropping from 44 to 43 per cent, while surpassed for adults dropping from 28 cent to 20 per cent.

• Target: A 20 per cent decrease in the proportion of repeat youth and adult offenders who are Māori.
Result: Youth offending proportion has risen from 57 to 62 per cent, and adult from 44 to 47 per cent.

• Target: A 25 per cent cut in non-traffic apprehensions of Māori that resulted in prosecution.
Result: A 34 per cent reduction for youth, and a 8 per cent reduction for adults.

• Target: Record Māori satisfaction, confidence and trust in police.
Result: Satisfaction is at 80 per cent - down from 82 per cent in 2013. Trust and confidence up from 66 per cent to 70 per cent.

• Target: A 20 per cent fall in the proportion of casualties in serious and fatal crashes who were Māori.
Result: Target not included in 2018 results. At 2016 fatal crash proportion had fallen from 23 to 20 per cent, with no change in serious crash proportion.

• Target: A 20 per cent decrease in proportion of repeat victims who are Maori.
Result: Target not included in 2018 results. At 2016 the youth proportion dropped from 41 to 37 per cent, while for adults it rose from 26 to 27 per cent.