Rethinking policing in Aotearoa New Zealand: decolonising lessons from the Covid-19 pandemic

Abstract

Notwithstanding the global praise directed to New Zealand’s approach to Covid-19, the pandemic has intensified harms and inequalities in many areas of national life. The racialised, classed and gendered inequities that percolate through this settler-state have intensified, especially within criminal justice settings. At the same time, the pandemic has illustrated other opportunities for protective and just measures–not least in terms of how Māori asserted self-determination by establishing checkpoints to prevent potential carriers of Covid-19 from reaching rural Māori communities. This article shows how these responses highlighted the fundamental limits of state protection for Māori on health or law and order grounds but they also offered pathways for greater policing autonomy for Māori. From here, and drawing on the examples of Watene Māori (Māori Wardens) and Te Pae Oranga (Iwi Community Panels), the article considers how self-policing within and among Māori communities might be more clearly determined and actioned in ways aligned to the principles of Te Tiriti o Waitangi (the Treaty of Waitangi).