Police research adds to evidence against gang patch ban

As Te Hīkoi mō Te Tiriti gathered at Wellington’s Waitangi Park on the waterfront on Tuesday morning, the MC welcomed “brothers of the patched world and sisters of the patched world”.
He told the Māori members of the crowd that their whakapapa – carried through tā moko – survived on the faces of gang whānau, during a generation when the practice was suppressed.
Others halted the practice of tā moko and moko kauae, but those in gangs refused.
“All of us have a patch on today – it’s not a gang patch today, it’s a whānau patch,” the MC said.
Walking next to tangata whenua, carrying their babies, and shoulder-to-shoulder with so-called ‘suburban mums’ marched members of Black Power, Mongrel Mob, Nomads, and those from the New Zealand chapter of First Nations motorcycle gang Redrum.
Most were hesitant to speak to media on the record or have their pictures taken. Many will have had negative experiences with law enforcement and will worry about surveillance of them and their whānau.
East Brown told Newsroom he had come from Lower Hutt to Parliament “for my babies”. Brown wore his Nomads patch to Parliament on Tuesday.
“They look at us as a criminal,” he said. “We’re not even about that. We’re trying to make everyone be as one.”
From Thursday, police will begin enforcing the Government’s new gang patch ban. 
The new law prohibits gang patches being worn in public places, and gives police the powers to break up groups of gang members and stop them communicating with each other.
A late, but major, amendment to the law means police will also be able to search and seize gang insignia from within people’s homes or residences. This part of the law has been harshly criticised for the way it was added to the legislation without public and expert consultation, the broad human rights implications, and the ambiguity around how police will enforce this part of the law.
“Gangs in our country think they’re above the law and can choose which laws they comply with, and this Government does not accept that,” Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith said.
“We have a justice system that applies equally to everyone,” he claimed.
Police Minister Mark Mitchell added that police were ready to use the new tools brought in to target disruptive gang events, and enforce the new laws.
“Our message to the gangs is clear, the days of behaving like you are above the law are over.”
If the protest had happened two days later, the demonstration might have had a different feel – a point Labour leader Chris Hipkins made on Wednesday.
“I think it would have put the police in a very difficult position yesterday,” he said.
“Potentially the police, enforcing a gang patch ban at that event, might have undermined some of that positivity,” he said.
Speaking to RNZ ahead of the ban coming into effect, Assistant Commissioner Paul Basham implied that police discretion would be doing a lot of heavy lifting.
Basham said police had held 450 meetings during the past six months with gangs and affected communities, clearly communicating that the law change was happening and that police would be enforcing it.
But the ambiguity of the laws meant police would have to apply discretion, and in some cases, they may need to seek legal advice before enforcing the law. In the end, the courts would decide, he said.
On Wednesday, incoming Commissioner Richard Chambers said police were ready to go, but the focus should also be on gang members and their choices.
The enforcement of the ambiguous and wide-ranging laws were happening in the context of a Government talking a tough game on law and order, and a police force moving towards an approach grounded in fairness and equity.
Add to that issues around the safety of children, communities and police officers and it was unclear exactly when and how the ban would be enforced.
Last month, when asked to define what type of insignia would draw the attention of the police in someone’s home – a photo of a family member in a patch, for instance – Police Minister Mark Mitchell suggested the size of a photo could play a part in deciding whether police invoked their search and seizure powers. 
When asked to be more specific, Mitchell realised these fraught operational decisions were best left to police. But the discussion highlighted the difficult line law enforcement would have to walk.
While the gang patch ban came into effect on Thursday, Wednesday saw police release a first-of-its-kind study, which adds to the evidence against a suppression approach to policing gangs.
The groundbreaking study identified patterns of bias, unfair treatment and inequitable policing delivery, particularly for those from disabled communities, rainbow communities, gang communities, wāhine Māori who have experienced family violence, and those who have experienced excessive use of force at the hands of police. It also found evidence of empathetic, humanistic and whānau-centred police practices.
Overall the research found different people – particularly those from marginalised communities, including gang communities – had inconsistent policing experiences.
Those who were in gangs, or had connections to gangs, were seen as “less worthy” victims. And those negative interactions with police reinforced distrust in police officers and systems.
However, the evidence from across the mixed method studies, which involved police and communities, found the best outcomes occurred when police built relationships and trust with these communities.
Founding chair of the project’s independent panel Tā Kim Workman said police were now having constant discussions about applying the law in a fair and equitable way.
“It may not be part of the political conversation, but it should be part of the police conversation,” he said.
The challenge for police is being able to take the legislation that is being determined by Parliament and make it less problematic than it is.”
While there was full buy-in from police, Mitchell had distanced himself from the research.
“There’s nothing in those recommendations that won’t fit comfortably into the work that the police are currently doing. There’s nothing radical,” Workman said.
“What it is, though, is evidence. It’s evidence based research, and it’s difficult to deny good evidence. Although, some politicians are capable of it.”
The report from the Understanding Policing Delivery study that focused on gangs first looked at existing research that drew a clear link to the intergenerational impact of the state care system – as highlighted by the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in State and Faith-based Care – as well as childhood trauma, family violence and incarcerated parents.
“These experiences, combined with early negative interactions with police, contributed to longstanding community distrust of law enforcement across generations,” the Ihio Reserach report said.
“Dehumanising and discriminatory police behaviour is evidenced by the use of racist, sexist/misogynistic, ableist police language, alongside excessive use of force and disproportionate responses.” 
And those discriminatory police practices were compounded by intersectionality issues. For example, Māori trans sex workers and Māori gang whānau reported they were more likely to be stopped and approached by police. 
Hyper-surveillance and profiling by police also led to escalated and heightened police interactions. 
“There was evidence of long-standing, harmful policing beliefs about people’s ‘deservedness’ and ‘worthiness’ across community cases,” the report said. 
“Discriminatory police behaviour was underpinned by questions around who is a genuine ‘victim of crime’ and who is ‘worthy’ or ‘unworthy’ of higher levels of police support. 
“’Unworthy’ examples were evident in police interactions with wāhine Māori experiencing family harm cases, whānau experiencing mental distress, and gang whānau.”
One gang member participant said: “Police don’t really represent rescue for me. They represent coming to break the family up.”
The research, which drew on in-depth interviews with gang communities, found the term ‘gang’ was “blunt and problematic, due to its broad, and often inaccurate, application”.
It looked at how police played a role of facilitators of state care, which was often dehumanising and violent.
It looked at the connections between childhood trauma and violence, and how young people learnt to survive through violence and banding together.
And recounted how both police and gang participants described their relationships as marked by “oppositional hostility and mutual distrust”.
Participants also spoke about rare, positive interactions with police who were empathetic and professional, and the lasting impact that had.
Ihi Research director Chatherine Leonard, who led the qualitative interviews with members of marginalised communities, said their research and other evidence did not support the Government’s gang patch ban.
The Government’s own officials produced a scathing regulatory impact assessment from officials, who said there was “no evidence to suggest that a suppression approach will work to reduce long-term offending behaviours by gangs, or eliminate gangs altogether”.
Leonard said evidence showed this was not a good way to reduce crime with gangs, and that it might push crime underground, which was difficult for police to manage.
Now, Leonard said she was interested in what research would be generated as a result of enacting the legislation, including answering questions like: How would the Government measure success? And what impact did the laws have on the community?
Overall, the final phase of the two-phase policing research project found that systems, processes and cumulative experiences were getting in the way of fair and equitable policing for all communities.
But researchers were careful to point out the fact that the issues lay with the structures and the systems, not individual police officers.
The research also found authentic and collaborative community and policing innovations were making a difference.
In a bid to improve the way communities were policed, the panel recommended more value be put on relational ways of working with communities, similar to the work done in areas like Ōpōtiki and previously in places like Northland and Kawerau.
They also called on police to amplify Māori and community-led local collaborations, where the police played a supporting, enabling and resourcing role.
Meanwhile, there were calls for more regular analysis and public reporting on levels of service delivery and equity for Māori and marginalised communities.
Workman said this research was a koha to New Zealand.
“There’s nothing new in this. It’s just that the voices are being heard in a very clear way,” he said.
Police voices were also included “not in the spirit of denial, but in the spirit of acceptance, and in the spirit of moving forward”.
Workman said he carried out similar research in 1998, which was rejected by police. But this time it was different.
For many decades, there had been a pattern of denial in police and across the state sector, “where the uncomfortableness of what’s happening with children, vulnerable communities, is so big that they find it easier to evade the truth than to embrace it”. 
Workman said he agreed with Mitchell that Aotearoa had the best police force in the world. “And the reason we have the best police force in the world is because they’re not afraid to face the truth,” he said.
Police had committed to implementing the recommendations of the research, regardless of Government policy.
“I’m 84 and I’m not likely to last much longer, it’s really at a point at which I am finally persuaded to retire and say, we’ve done good,” Workman said.