Law and race

Your investigation into institutional racism (‘‘Treading a thin, blue line’’, Focus, September 18 ) shines a light into one of our darkest corners. And you are right, the discrimination has played out over many decades. I was involved in rehab, working in Whanganui with a close friend, the activist Piki Takiari in the early 1980s. A progressive Superintendent allowed her access to Kaitoki Prison where she began running programmes for Maori. The shock at discovering a prison that was a holding pen for Maori and a recruiting ground for gangs radicalised both of us. Our justice system is blind, but not in the way it likes to imagine. Derek Schulz, Raumati Beach I agree that the son of a Rich-Lister was given far too lenient a sentence, but I disagree with the notion that institutionalised racism is at play.

How is it that only white people can be racist? I well remember the anger when just last year it was discovered that police in South Auckland had been instructed not to ticket unlicensed Maori drivers caught behind the wheel.

They were instead to be referred for training as part of the Turning the Tide national policy.

If more crime per capita is committed by Maori, then common sense dictates that more Maori will end up in prison.

Surely, regardless of whichever racial group you belong to – if you do the crime, then you do the time! Robin Bishop, Tauranga