In 1997 NZ Police and Te Puni Kōkiri commissioned research from Victoria Link on Perceptions of Māori and Police. This research comprised two complimentary but separate components.
The first, Māori Perceptions of the Police by Pania Te Whaiti and Michel Roguski from He Parekerekere, sought information on Māori attitudes towards the police; and the second, Police Perceptions of Māori by Gabrielle Maxwell and Catherine Smith from the Institute of Criminology, examined police views about their behavior and attitudes toward Māori.
This summary document provides an overview of the two research reports. However, the document is not intended to be a substituted for reading the two reports. This document is necessarily brief and selective in the information it presents, and consequently a full understanding of the issues can only be obtained by reference to the research reports themselves.
This document outlines who was involved in the research, how it was done, and the main findings. Section 2 explains the background to the research, and section 3 provides a general introduction to the two studies. This is followed by more detailed discussion of each study in sections 4 and 5. The final section focuses on policy implications of the research.