Prison as Destiny? Descent or Dissent?

Abstract

The Māori experience of colonisation is paralleled by struggles of Indigenous peoples in other settler states which have also been systematically brutalised and marginalised by state policies and practices, and where they continue to be over-represented in prison populations. This chapter will focus on the over-representation of Māori women in prison in New Zealand and particularly look at the experience of broader forms of social confinement and silencing. In better understanding patterns of confinement and incarceration of Māori women we are able to map the reach of prisons into whānau and communities and the construction of a feminised criminalised Indigenous identity. One of the explicit narratives of the paper will be how the experience of removal, dispossession, dismissal, disconnection and deprivation contributes to and sustains the transfer of prison experience across generations. A central feature of the chapter will be drawing on those with lived experience of incarceration to speak to and give insight into both their incarcerated condition, their future individual and collective aspirations as well as reflecting on the art of decarceration. Recognising incarcerated women as experts of their own condition provides a platform to inform decarceration strategies. The privileging of this status and the need for radical honesty in engaging with systemic racialised injustice means we may be able to move beyond simply describing a condition towards new creative possibilities for sustained transformative change that helps create and sustain community flourishing.