Three criminologists explain how a history of negative experiences of policing will affect how some communities view the police – and it’s crucial that the opinions of these communities are heard. 

Over the last day, a media frenzy has erupted over Green Party MP for Wellington Central Tamatha Paul’s comments criticising the police. As criminologists at three of New Zealand’s major universities, this furore seems somewhat ridiculous to us. Paul argued that police beat patrols make some people feel unsafe, that the police have a history of discrimination, and that there are a number of tasks for which the police are not the appropriate responders. This prompted outrage from the government as well as the Labour Party, with various politicians claiming she was “ill-informed” and in “la la land”. The only problem with all of this is that, from a criminological perspective, Tamatha Paul is completely correct. 

Paul’s critique of policing was made at a university panel discussion, an event at which she was asked to share her constituents’ perspectives. Speaking for communities and sharing their opinions on issues that matter to them is literally the task of electorate MPs. That’s why we have them. Paul commented that police patrols, as visible expressions of the state’s coercive power, mean a different thing to the community she represents than they may mean to others. A history of negative experiences of policing will affect how communities view the police. Criminologists began collecting evidence that the New Zealand Police engaged in racist discrimination decades ago. Last year’s Understanding Police Delivery report, co-produced by researchers and the police themselves, affirmed that this discrimination continues into the present. Māori are around seven times more likely than Pākehā to be the victims of police violence. This reality affects how the communities Paul represents perceive the police. They, and she, have a right to share that perception. 

When politicians criticise Paul for sharing her constituents’ views of the police, they are attempting to render these opinions inexpressible. It’s worth considering whose voices get to be heard in public and whose voices are categorically dismissed. Research conducted in West Auckland showed that different communities held different opinions on policing. Pākehā communities were indeed found to support increased police patrols, but Māori and Pacific people overwhelmingly preferred other justice measures. When these populations are also those disproportionately targeted by the police, it is crucial that their opinions be heard. The conversation about justice policy cannot be a monocultural monologue. The people Paul is speaking for are part of the public too, and their opinions are at least as important as those of the business owners and politicians who have tried to shut them out. 

It is also crucial to remember that the NZ Police, as outlined in the Policing Bill 2007, is “an instrument of the Crown”. As instruments of the Crown – armed instruments of the Crown – the police must at the very least be held to high standards and challenged by the communities they purport to serve. They must also be responsive to the historical and present injustices perpetrated by their forces. Just this week, RNZ reported that an 11-year-old girl was handcuffed, taken to a mental health facility, and injected with powerful antipsychotics after police misidentified her as a 20-year-old. Paul mentions this horrific event and asserts the need for alternative non-police protocols for mental health callouts. Despite police minister Mark Mitchell dismissing Paul’s concerns as “laughable”, Mitchell himself said in July 2024 that police were not trained to respond to mental health callouts and the system of police response was “not working properly” for those experiencing mental distress. The entire parliamentary right appears to be united in ferocious condemnation of Paul for positions the police minister himself holds. 

Paul’s other concerns were sparked by community organisations reaching out to her with concerns about police confiscating homeless people’s few belongings. The dismissal of this claim – despite it, again, being completely true – is cause for further concern about how the police and government are treating and responding to our most vulnerable populations. Paul’s key point – one that she has reiterated over the past day – is that “not everyone’s interactions [with the police] are the same”. This claim is indisputable. The discipline of criminology is founded on this fact. From repressive policing of Māori communities at Bastion Point, Rūātoki and Ihumātao, to racialised surveillance of young Māori in 2022, to the everyday violence of systemic racist discrimination, we see how policing maintains the racist oppression and class exploitation on which this country was founded. It’s never done anything else.

David Seymour asked if Tamatha Paul supported policing, or “some other world, and how would that work?” As criminologists, we say proudly that we support some world other than this one ruled by inequality, exploitation and injustice. The safe, healthy and thriving communities we all say that we want can only be achieved by addressing the root causes of insecurity. We must ensure that everyone’s needs are provided for. Expanding access to affordable housing, mental health support, youth development programmes and food to eat will do far more to prevent crime than just unleashing police patrols on the poor. 

That Paul’s remarks, as well-evidenced and reasonable as they are, were met with such fervent opposition from four party leaders is deeply concerning, and reflects a broader shift towards rightwing populism. Four decades of neoliberal economic policy have made New Zealand a paradise for the rich and a nightmare for the poor – a place of tax breaks, benefit sanctions, holidays in Queenstown, and sleeping in gutters. There are policy choices that we could make to keep people warm, fed, housed and connected. New Zealand would be a better place, and a safer place, if we did. Tamatha Paul is being shouted down not because she said anything ridiculous, but because she said something sensible. This is not an ill-informed dream of some impossible world, but a world that almost exists – a world so possible that we could choose to call it into being.