July 27, 2015
Is Serco abuse racist?
Is Serco abuse racist?
MARTYN BRADBURY
The appalling intimidation, violence, organised fight clubs, rapes, assault, and one possible death that has been highlighted at the privately run prison at Mt Eden carries with it an unspoken racism.
Maori overwhelmingly make up a disproportionate percentage of our prison population and it is Maori who bear the blunt force of a Corrections system that has been underfunded to the point where only the wealthy can afford justice.
It is heartening that the Maori Party now are questioning the violence at Serco, it is unfortunate that the Maori Party supported the Private Prisons creation.
Only the State should ever have the power to withhold another persons liberty. By sub-contracting that power out to a corporation, there is no clear line of responsibility and seeing as it is Maori who are being stuffed into this environment at greater numbers than anyone else, their rights are the ones most collectively exposed here.
Considering Serco's overseas corruption and treatment of refugees in Australian detention camps, this company has about as much cultural awareness as your average white supremacy Facebook page. A private prison doesn't care about rehabilitation or safe prison environments, they care about profit.
Indigenous people need and should demand from all public institutions a level of cultural awareness if those institutions are to be meaningful, what we are seeing at Serco is the perversion of those public institution values resulting in a further corruption of the men sent there.
This prison is returning us men who are more damaged than when they went in, and because Maori are over represented inside prison, the abuse is taking its toll hardest there.
If this level of abuse was being perpetrated against better privileged groups, it wouldn't have taken 18 months to surface inside the media.
Martyn Bradbury
Editor – TheDailyBlog.co.nz
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