NCJ Number
146948
Journal
Australian and New Zealand Journal of Criminology Volume: 26 Issue: 3 Dated: (December 1993) Pages: 193-206
Date Published
1993
Length
14 pages
Annotation
This article reports on a study that examined the relationships between ethnicity, self/parentally reported offending, and rates of police contact in a birth cohort of Christchurch (New Zealand) residents studied to the age of 15 years old.
Abstract
This analysis indicates that although children of Maori/Pacific Island descent offended at a significantly higher rate than European (Pakeha) children, there were differences in the magnitude of ethnic differences in offending based on the way in which offending was measured. Based on self/parentally reported offending, children of Maori/Pacific Island descent offended at approximately 1.7 times the rate of Pakeha children; however, based on police contact statistics, these children were 2.9 times more likely to come to police attention than Pakeha children. The differences between self/parentally reported offending rates and rates of police contact could not be explained by the fact that Maori/Pacific Island children offended more often or committed different types of offenses than Pakeha children. Logistic modeling of the data indicates that children of Maori/Pacific island descent were approximately 2.4 times more likely to come to official police attention than Pakeha children with an identical self/parentally reported history of offending. These results support the hypothesis that police are biased in the comparative priority they give to contact with juveniles in these two ethnic groups. Police statistics thus exaggerate the differences in the rate of offending by children of Maori/Pacific Island descent and Pakeha children. 7 tables and 22 references