Migration Research network: The impact of police encounters with young African New Zealanders
Channel: e socsci
Date: 2018-05-29

The impact of police encounters with young African New Zealanders and the coping strategies of the youth in New Zealand in response to these encounters.

Presenter: Camille Nakhid

This seminar discusses the impact of police encounters with young African New Zealanders on the youth themselves, their family and their community. African youth are one of New Zealand’s newest and youngest populations yet report disturbing accounts of racial provocation and abuse by the New Zealand police. While much of the current literature takes a quantitative approach to researching the impact of police behaviours on community, the study on which this seminar is based sought to gain a qualitative understanding of how the African youth and their community in Aotearoa New Zealand are impacted by encounters with the police. It is important that we understand the impact that these encounters have on the youth because of the rate of increase in the numbers of African youth in the country, and the need for young people and their communities to feel safe with those legitimately responsible for their safety. I also look at the coping behaviours used by African youth during their encounters with the police. These responses included being obstructive, demonstrating vigilance of police practices, and avoiding subsequent encounters with the police, and indicate that the youth are prepared to challenge the perceived racist behaviours of the police.