95bFM Record prison population challenges claims prisons make Aotearoa safer
10 February, 2026
Interview by Castor Chacko, adapted by Gabriella Magdalene
The incarcerated population in New Zealand has reached an all-time high thanks to the government’s “tough-on-crime” policies intended to enhance public safety. Te Pāti Māori, on the other hand, has declared a policy of prison abolition ahead of this year’s election. They claim that prisons in Aotearoa are failing, especially for Māori.
Academic and activist Dr. Emmy Rākete told 95bFM’s The Wire that the connection between safety and imprisonment is unproven. “The number one argument that you'll hear is that increasing prison populations is about public safety”, however, she says there is “no reason to think that that’s the case.”
Rākete says increasing prison numbers are driven by political decisions rather than the crime itself. “It increases, firstly, because we implement policies that get more people locked up, and it increases, secondly, because we have the capacity to continue locking people up.”
Māori continue to be overrepresented in the justice system, according to Rākete, which a problem that has yet to be addressed. She says discrimination has become “a permanent feature of New Zealand’s justice system” and that it's staying as bad as it's ever been.
She argues that incarceration increased once Māori were absorbed into the urban labour systems, placing this pattern in a historical context. “As soon as [the state] could get its hands on Māori people, it started stuffing us into prisons.”
Prison overcrowding becomes the topic of more concern as the number of inmates increases. Rākete warns that concentrating on overcrowding runs the risk of further prison expansion. “If we say prisons are overcrowded, the natural response then is, well, we better build more prisons.” The prison system then continually feeds itself.
“Prisons are really, really ineffective justice interventions. People who go to prison are more likely to re-offend than they were before they went in.”
Rākete instead claims that factors like the Bail Amendment Act, which has led to an increase in pre-trial imprisonment, are major factors in mass incarceration. She calls the legislation “one of the main drivers of mass incarceration in this country.”
She says genuine reform requires greater social investment, including housing and public services. Rākete claims that the state will continue to rely on incarceration in the absence of such changes. However, she also urges us to remain positive.
“Until the state intervenes again to make life possible, the state will be intervening to cram people in prisons instead. That's not going to work forever.”
