Taking up the challenge

Inspector Andrew Coster, Counties Manukau South

INSPECTOR ANDREW Coster, Acting Area Commander of Counties Manukau South, outlined his approach to taking forward the learning points of the three-day Police Leadership Conference.

“The key challenge we were faced with at Ngakia Kia Puawai 2008 was the significant over-representation of Māori in all parts of the criminal justice system,” says Andrew.

“If our key focus is safer communities and crime reduction, we need to think about how that will be best achieved with Māori, who are disproportionately represented either as offenders or victims in all detected crime in New Zealand.

“Many of the speakers at the conference highlighted the need to find innovative solutions to existing problems. We need to ask whether our traditional approach to policing is the most effective way to reduce offending and victimisation amongst Māori.”

Andrew is keen to utilise existing practice including the National Priority Offender Project to focus on prolific Māori offenders.

He would like to identify them, identify the causes of their offending and to implement local initiatives to target the causes of offending – and to combine it with new ideas gleaned from the conference.

He recognises the need to engage non-government and government agencies including Housing New Zealand, WINZ, CYF and Probation to try and develop a holistic community response to deal with prolific offenders.

One key action he set for himself was to explore the possibility of setting up a local Area Māori Advisory Board. “I would like to seek out local Kaumatua and Kuia, and other representatives who have a vested interest in the communities of Counties Manukau South, to have them play an active part in policing the community,” he says.

“One of the key objectives must be that Māori and other minority ethnic communities take ownership of community safety and crime reduction amongst their people.

“This requires genuine engagement – an understanding of the concerns, issues and needs of those communities in Counties Manukau South.

“I believe the starting point for good engagement is a representative and robust Māori Advisory Board.”

The Board could be used to inform the local community about Māori offending and victimisation, says Andrew.

“It could provide police with a better understanding of issues that are of concern to the community – and it may give us the opportunity to interface directly with parts of the community, including those entrenched in criminal lifestyles, that we have traditionally dealt with as adversaries.”

Andrew acknowledges that this is a long-term undertaking, but he has made a commitment to take up the leadership challenge and to do what he can to ensure that Responsiveness to Māori is embedded into every aspect of policing on his patch.