Race Relations Commissioner floats idea of Hawke's Bay Regional Prison being run by Iwi

Friday, 23 October 2020

Race Relations Commissioner Meng Foon has floated the idea of Hawke's Bay Regional prison being iwi run.

The Race Relations Commissioner has caught the Government off guard after springing an idea that prisons should be iwi run, with a specific focus on Hawke's Bay Regional Prison.

Although the idea is at conversation stage, Meng Foon told RNZ he had been in discussions with iwi and was in the process of lining up meetings with the Department of Corrections.

Foon said the current prison system was not working for Māori, and more of a community approach was needed.

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Corrections Minister Kelvin Davis said he had not been approached by the Race Relations Commissioner about the idea of iwi-run prisons.

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“I really encourage the Government to trust iwi to run prisons. We need to trust Māori with solutions, and they do have solutions,” Foon said.

“They have great capability, capacity, and Māori have said what is good for iwi is actually good for New Zealand.”

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Corrections Minister Kelvin Davis said in a statement that Foon had not approached him with the idea.

“The Government does not support the establishment of private-run prisons in New Zealand, no matter who the private operator may be, however the over-representation of Māori in our prison system has been a focus for the Government in the Corrections portfolio, and we have undertaken significant work to address this,” Davis said.

“We made changes to the way Corrections operates by introducing Hōkai Rangi, the new Corrections strategy which aims to treat prisoners with respect and uphold their mana – and ultimately aims to lower the proportion of Māori in Corrections care.

In last year’s Budget, the Government announced $98 million for the creation of Māori Pathways at Hawke’s Bay and Northland Region prisons.

Topia Rameka, deputy chief executive Māori at Department of Corrections said the overrepresentation of Māori in the prison system, and the wider justice system, continues to be something Corrections is committed to changing.

Chairman of the Ngati Kahunguna, Ngahiwi Tomoana, said he fully back the idea of iwi run prisons.

“We are working hard with our partners and with iwi and Māori providers to prevent Māori both entering into the prison system and reducing the risk of re-offending once they have completed their sentence – but we know there is a lot of hard work to do.”

Davis said the Government had made “excellent progress” in reducing the prison population, which had recently dropped below 9,000 for the first time since 2015.

Chairman of Ngāti Kahungunu, Ngahiwi Tomoana had also not spoken to the commissioner, but applauded the idea of iwi-run prisons.

“[Foon] has infinite knowledge of the community as well as of the prison system. He’s based his kōrero on his own intel and also his own intuition on how to do something about it,” Tomoana said.

“It's very ambitious, but it’s very aspirational too because we’ve been saying this for a long time, but for someone that important saying it is pretty remarkable, and we 100 per cent support it,” Tomoana said.

When it came to the Māori Pathways programme, Tomoana said “in terms of needs, it was pedestrian”.

“It’s on the right track, but [it’s too] pedestrian, and we’ve got many resources pushed at it.

“The local hapū of Mangaroa have been gearing up for ages to be able to go into the system and produce hapū and iwi to kaupapa services that would not only accelerate learning within prisons, but accelerate integration outside of prisons.”

Another ambition involved in running the prison was to accelerate the exit of Māori into well qualified jobs.

“Currently in Otago prison, iwi are running virtual reality training programmes for numeracy and literacy and it’s proven 99 per cent successful, and if we were able to run those in our prisons, alongside our private sector partners, we would accelerate people integrating with their whanau.”

“Maori are six times more likely to get arrested, six times more likely to be imprisoned, and six times more likely to get a longer sentence.”

Tomoana said Ngāti Kahungunu would be touching base with the commissioner early next week to further the discussions of an iwi-run prison.

“There also needs to be greater collaborations between the police and the courts, because everyone thinks it's a corrections' problem, but actually it’s not.

“It’s a whole strand of the justice system which is disjointed, and they don’t talk to each other, so corrections ends up with the result of two – in my mind – floored processes which double the Maori offenders.”