police commissioner

NZ hotels are Islanders’ cultural centres says police commissioner

Hotels tend to become the cultural centres for Pacific Islanders living in New Zealand, according to Police Commissioner R. J. Walton, writes William Gasson in

Wellington.

Mr Walton made the com ment in a written submission to a parliamentary select com mittee on violent offending that forged a strong link be tween drinking and violence.

While he blamed liquor as a “lubricant of violence” overall, the submission spelt out the

worrying disproportionate per

centage of Pacific Islanders and Maoris arrested for violent

offending.

A three-month survey in Auckland in 1976 showed that Maoris committed 27.38% of all assaults and Islanders the same number, although Maoris made up 8.28% of the popu lation and Islanders 4.86%.

Maoris and Pacific Islanders together make up 13.14% of Auckland’s population but they account for 55.25% of total arrests for violence.

Another survey showed that while Pacific Islanders and Maoris aged 14 to 30 rep resented 2.75% of the country’s

population, they committed

34.85% of detected violence.

Violent offenders tended to be in the lower social economic group and a high percentage of Maoris and Pacific Islanders fell within that group, the sub mission said.

In the case of Pacific Islanders, a strange environ ment and often a lack of ability to communicate caused prob lems. Islanders left their relaxed and informal villages for a way of life totally foreign to them and the hotel tended to become their cultural centres, Mr Walton said.

He believed there should be an education programme available to Islanders about New Zealand’s way of life be fore they arrive.

As it was, domestic disputes reached a peak after hotel clos ing time when various welfare

agencies were unavailable to help in a family crisis.

The long-term answer to liquor-related offences could

be educating people towards

self-discipline in their drinking

habits. However, until these social measures could be taken, violence must be countered by firm enforcement of the law.

In answer to critics who claimed that Auckland police arrested Maoris and Islanders

simply because they belonged

to minority ethnic groups, Mr Walton said: “It must be remembered that those arrested for drunkenness are in fact potential victims if allowed to wander the streets in that state.”

It was an “awesome sight” when dozens of hotel patrons spilled out of hotels at closing time armed with bottles, he said.

“It may be thought that the prime purpose in taking bottles from the bar is to consume the contents. In very many cases the bottles are taken for the sole purpose of providing a weapon either defensive or of fensive.”

Mr Walton’s comments were mainly aimed at the overall New Zealand drinking scene of which Islanders form a part.

His submissions noted that whereas New Zealanders drank 107 litres of beer, wine and spirits per head of popu lation in 1963 that figure had risen to 145 litres in 1975 and at the last count was 141 litres.

Mr Walton put his finger on two problem areas for all New Zealanders, as well as Islanders, when he said: • “While it is the accepted thing to drink as much as poss ible in as short a time as poss ible and this is the established rule in many sec tors of the community our problems will continue. • “While we have large bar areas, the problems of control, violence, intoxication will re main.”