Tā Kim Workman. (Photo supplied)

A dedicated research team has completed the first phase of a project to tackle systemic bias in the New Zealand Police.

Tā Kim Workman, the founding chair and pou ārahi of the research, says most of the findings so far will come as no surprise to Māori. The project isn’t about proving that bias exists — there’s no doubt that it does, and always has, he says. The point is to find a way to get rid of it. 

Here’s Tā Kim in conversation with Siena Yates.

This research addresses what’s most lacking in understanding police bias. Which is that, over the last 20 years at least, there’ve been multiple reports stating that Māori are overrepresented in the criminal justice system, and a lot of talk about the role of institutional racism in that — but there’s not a lot of detail on what exactly that means, or how it plays out in practice.

Our first lot of reports have three main points of focus. We looked at who gets stopped by police, and what those engagements are like, the use of force, and prosecution decisions.

We’ve had an expert independent panel of 15 academic and community leaders managing  the research, including the likes of Professor Khylee Quince, Distinguished Professor Emeritus Paul Spoonley, Helen Leahy, and Lady Tureiti Moxon. The panel worked closely with a group of 30 frontline officers from around Aotearoa to understand how they operate day to day.

We appointed four research teams to carry out the mahi: Ihi Research from Ōtautahi, Mana Pounamu, the Donald Beasley Institute from Ōtepoti, which specialises in research about whaikaha, and Dr Paul Brown, University of Waikato, who carried out the data analysis.

In the first phase, the research teams analysed police data, logs, reports and taser bodycam footage. They also analysed feedback, including praise for the police and complaints, both internally and from the public. Dozens of interviews were conducted with police officers and various community groups, and they observed police operations in different areas across the country, including at various police stations and at the Police College in Porirua.

What we found

To figure out exactly who was more likely to be stopped and talked to by the police, and how they were treated, we analysed not only police data but also complaints and praise feedback made by the public either to or about the police.

The evidence indicates that Māori are, proportionally, at least three times more likely to be apprehended for a criminal offence than non-Māori. And according to data, they’re also 50 percent more likely to complain about being searched without a warrant.

Looking at who is prosecuted by police, we found that various factors make that more likely, like gang membership or association, or having prior convictions. But we also found that, even with all other factors being equal, being Māori increased the likelihood of prosecution by 11 percent. The good news is that’s down from the 19 percent recorded in a 2018 study.

And finally, we looked at how police decide to use force. There were 54 complaints about the use of force in the three-month study period, and over half, 55 percent, of those complaints about the use of force of force were from Māori. That’s despite Māori only making up 20% of complainants overall.

Both Māori and Pasifika complaints also referred to greater levels of force which included intimidation, assault (like punching and kicking), and the use of taser and police dogs.

Seventy-six percent of complaints made by Māori men, and 100 percent of those made by Pasifika men, were coded by the police as Level 3, meaning they were “serious”. That compares to just 46 percent of Pākehā complaints considered serious.

Māori and Pasifika men were also more likely to have a taser used on them, with Māori being involved in 54 percent of all events where a taser was produced, and 45 percent of events where the taser was actually discharged. Pasifika peoples were involved in 10 percent of taser events, and 19 percent of discharge events. This, despite the fact that Māori make up only 16.5 percent of the population, and Pasifika just 8.1 percent of the population.

The bigger question

These kinds of findings probably aren’t that surprising to many people. The question that we have to ask is: “Well, why do these things occur?”

Some people take the position that, well, it’s because those people commit more crime. But we need to be more thoughtful than that.

Is it to do with how we define crimes and criminals? For example, one of our findings was that gang members and associates are nearly twice as likely to be prosecuted. But what makes you a “gang associate”? If your dad’s in a gang and you come home after completing your law degree, are you a gang associate?

Is it about the way people perceive Māori and Pacific people? We learned that because Pasifika men, for example, are likely to be big, strong, and of a different complexion to police officers, some officers are more likely to think: “I’m going to have to use a taser to deal with this person because I’m not capable of dealing with them otherwise.” Pasifika men were more likely to be tasered than any other group.

Some people might think that just comes down to the individual officer, but that’s not necessarily all it is. Other things influence threat perception, like the flags and alerts in the police database. Police use a tool called TENR to assess operational threats. TENR refers to threat, exposure, necessity and response.

In many of the TENR reports our research analysed, race or ethnicity was reported as part of the threat assessment — generally noted alongside physical size, age, and gender. And that was consistent in camera footage too, where age, size and ethnicity increased the officer’s likelihood of firing.

Another important factor to consider is how training and culture influence how certain events are handled in the field.

During our research, younger officers and more recent recruits pointed out some of the shortcomings of their training. For many years now, the focus in training has been on understanding what you lawfully can and can’t do, but not on when and how to use discretion in different circumstances, or on de-escalating potentially violent or difficult situations. While there is some de-escalation training at the college, officers have told us it’s still not nearly enough.

Besides that, there is a big difference between what goes on at the Police College and what happens when recruits hit the streets and work with the sergeants in charge. If the sergeant’s been there for 30 years, he or she could say: “Well, that might be what the Police College teaches, but this is real life, and you’d better get used to it.” That kind of culture can have quite an impact on things.

This was reflected in a small sample of internal police complaints we analysed, too, where in some cases, officers reported being asked or required by middle leaders to ignore or go against certain procedures.

The solution

Research projects like ours have failed in the past because researchers didn’t consult the police as part of their process. If you don’t involve them at the outset, all you get is resistance. That’s the nature of police culture worldwide.

So we made sure to work with an operational advisory group of 30 officers around the country, to help with our research and also to make sure our recommendations can actually work.

We don’t want to make a recommendation only to have them say: “Actually, that won’t work in the real world.” We’ve made about 40 recommendations so far, and eight of them have already been accepted while the others are under consideration.

Perhaps the highlight of this research so far is the responsiveness and openness of the police to undertake the project, in stark comparison to the culture of denial that exists overseas. In that regard, the New Zealand Police lead the world.  It was also prepared to innovate and experiment in order to gain the trust and confidence of the public.

Some of the accepted recommendations include increasing cultural training, improving data collection and access, and withdrawing police from handling mental health crises.

Some of the other recommendations include reviewing the TENR threat assessment model,  including stereotype judgment in training, and putting a stop to using ethnicity data for decision-making until a higher level of accuracy is confirmed.

So, in my view, this is world-leading research, because we’ve achieved what others have found very difficult — getting access to the right people and systems and having the police accept and implement our findings. We’ve completed the first phase of the research, and we’ll have the second phase out within a couple of months.

The main focus of phase two is greater community engagement.

We’ve interviewed a range of community groups about the impacts of current policing practices in Aotearoa. Feedback from those groups, which includes the whaikaha disabled community, takatāpui, wāhine Māori who are in family harm situations, and gang communities, will go into the phase two reports.

We’ve already seen in phase one how valuable public feedback can be. We gathered some good evidence of behaviours that do and don’t work when police are dealing with the public, and how to address a lot of issues.

We’ve learned about the things that escalate a situation. Things like officers making mocking or condescending remarks, engaging in an abrupt or aggressive manner, having too many officers issuing different demands at once, producing tasers prematurely, and having a dog present.

Things that de-escalate a situation include police officers having a calm demeanour, using relatable and easy-to-understand language, respecting people’s spaces and tikanga, maintaining a cordial tone, and understanding how police power can be threatening.

We also analysed praise submissions from the public and found that the community value it when officers show respect and care toward them, even when they are in the wrong. In many cases, police officers were reported to “go the extra mile” in terms of providing help, especially in situations that were traumatic, including mental health call-outs.

Now, you might be sitting here thinking all of this is pretty obvious, right? But we need to be specific and quantify these things, so we know where to go next.

When we spoke to police about that public feedback, they told us that while they’ve had some de-escalation training, there wasn’t any ongoing reinforcement on the job. So one of the recommendations we’ve made, which has been accepted, is to increase de-escalation training, based on both the public and internal police feedback.

Another interesting thing we’ve found is that when Māori and Pasifika peoples have made complaints to the Independent Police Conduct Authority, many of them would prefer a restorative process. So, rather than someone being disciplined or defending their actions, or even having to go to a formal body in the first place, they’d prefer to resolve the issue through hui. Implementing that kind of process is another recommendation we’ve made.

Our second phase reports will come out later this year, and at that point, our research will be finished. Then it’s up to the police to decide what other recommendations they’ll accept and how and when they’ll be implemented.

But I do think the police are committed to improving the public’s trust and confidence in them, because they know that means people will be more likely to report crime, give evidence and assistance, support their efforts, and generally create an environment in which they can properly do their jobs.

At the very least, this research will provide the police with enough information to be consistent in how they treat people, handle difficult situations and make prosecution decisions.

That’s what we talk about when we talk about structural bias. It’s not about picking out individuals who are racist and act on their biases. It’s about fixing the systems, culture and training the police operate under, and making those approaches consistent across the board.

The evidence overseas is pretty clear. When you change the culture of an organisation and develop an awareness about structural bias, training to overcome individual bias is more likely to be successful.

Tā Kim Workman (Ngāti Kahungunu, Rangitāne) spent nearly four decades in the public sector, including within the police, Corrections, the Office of the Ombudsman, State Services Commission, Department of Māori Affairs, and Ministry of Health. He was the director of Prison Fellowship from 2000 until 2008, and Families Commissioner from 2008 to 2011.

In 2005, Kim was joint recipient of the International Prize for Restorative Justice. He was named Metlifecare Senior New Zealander of the Year in 2018, and appointed as a Knight Companion to the New Zealand Order of Merit (KNZM) in 2019.

E-Tangata, 2024