[ad_1]
This story was originally published on RNZ.co.nz and republished with permission.
Wairarapa police admitted to taking photos of youths illegally after RNZ alerted them to multiple reports of officers stopping and photographing Maori youth on the street.
Whānau describes her children walking alone in broad daylight, when the police approached and insisted that they take their photo.
Marlene Harris said it happened to her son while he was walking home alone one afternoon in Masterton two years ago.
He was only 15 at the time.
READ MORE:
* How DNA techniques in police investigations can create ‘genetic informants’
* Pandemic Watch: The ‘Unprecedented’ Powers Unleashed to Keep Kiwis at Home
“He was just walking from his father’s house back to my house and just minding his own business, walking down the street,” he said.
“From what he can recall, there were two policemen in the car. They just stopped next to him and said they needed to have his picture taken, or they would have to take him.”
Harris said he was not really given a choice.
“They did ask for permission, but it was more, ‘Can we take a picture?’ And that’s followed by, ‘if you don’t, then we’ll have to take you to the station.’
“Of course, he bowed to her demand … It wasn’t like it was late at night, when he shouldn’t have been walking the streets. It was in broad daylight.”
Without an explanation, his son went home confused and told his parents.
Two years in his whānau I still don’t know why his photo was taken.
“We didn’t really think anything about it. If I had known that there were many other children in the community who were being beaten, I could have spoken about it,” he said.
“The Facebook post was really the only time I knew it really existed.”
The post you’re referring to was written by Massey University politics professor John-James Carberry last month.
He had heard that Wairarapa police were taking pictures of young people and reached out online to get more information.
He said his 14-year-old relative was also photographed by police in the district last year.
“He came up to her on the street,” he said.
“The police told him they were going to take a picture of him, they took a picture of him, and then they let him go on his way.”
Carberry said her Facebook post was filled with responses from other people whose tamariki had received similar treatment.
He is sure it has happened to many more youth in the district.
He said it appeared that Maori were being racially profiled.
“These guys are descendants of Wairarapa.
“The fact that they should be treated as second-class citizens and actually have their rights violated on their own land?”
In a statement, police said the law allowed them to take pictures of young people in some limited circumstances.
The Wairarapa area commander, Inspector Scott Miller, said in August that a review found that three images were not taken under the correct legislation and were destroyed.
He said that all other photographs of youths were correctly captured under Section 214 of the Oranga Tamariki Act of 1989.
He did not say why the review was carried out, nor did he give details about the youths captured in the photographs.
Attorney Marie Taylor-Cyphers was horrified and said that what was happening was extremely inappropriate.
“When you are under 17 years old, you are classified as a youth under New Zealand law, and the police cannot interview you on your own without the consent of your carers or specifically your carers being present.
“Which really raises questions about how the heck could they take pictures of you without your consent.”
Taylor-Cyphers said it also went against the country’s UN human rights obligations to protect children from arbitrary or illegal interference.
Human rights attorney Michael Bott said police needed to clarify what was happening in the district.
“Unless we have sunlight on this, then bad policy could be allowed to gain ground, and that shouldn’t be the case.
“And let’s not forget that when a young man sees a police officer in uniform, there is an element of coercion in that.
“It is highly unlikely that they will ask ‘why are you doing this?'”
Juvenile justice expert Nessa Lynch, associate professor of law at the University of Victoria, said there was a regulatory gap in privacy and surveillance laws and rules for police needed to be tightened.
But legal or not, he didn’t think it was the right thing to do.
“I think it is not a good practice, because it stigmatizes young people a bit and I do not think it is good surveillance.”
Marlene Harris said that what happened to her son two years ago had affected her attitude towards the police.
“It’s traumatized him a bit, always feeling like he has to defend himself against them.”
This story was originally published on RNZ.co.nz and republished with permission.
