Freedom Dreaming of Abolition in Aotearoa New Zealand: A Pacific Perspective on Tiriti-based Abolition Constitutionalism

Abstract

The global resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement in May 2020 led to an unprecedented reckoning with the racism within Aotearoa New Zealand’s police and prison systems. For Pacific peoples, this led to reflections on the racism of the police during the dawn raids of the 1970s and the racist police violence that Pacific peoples and Māori continue to face today. Notably, when the state apologised for the dawn raids in August 2021, it failed to acknowledge, let alone make amends for, this ongoing racist violence. Therefore, as a Pacific abolitionist legal scholar, in this article I argue that Pacific peoples and wider society in Aotearoa New Zealand must hold the state to account for the inherent racism of not only the police, but prisons as well. Specifically, I argue that we must ‘freedom dream’ ( Kelley 2002 , np) of police and prison abolition by supporting calls by Māori and other criminal justice advocates to achieve abolition through constitutional transformation premised on honouring te Tiriti o Waitangi. In making this argument, I draw on Black American abolitionist legal scholar Dorothy Roberts’ concept of ‘abolition constitutionalism’, which challenges abolitionists to grapple with whether abolition can be achieved within existing constitutional frameworks ( Roberts 2019 , 122). Accordingly, I offer a Pacific perspective on Tiriti-based abolition constitutionalism which further develops the case for why abolition cannot be achieved within current constitutional arrangements within which te Tiriti o Waitangi has long been, and will continue to be, undermined by Parliament.