Dr Tracey McIntosh is an Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Auckland. She has been looking at the experience of young Maori girls and women in prison and says greater investment in the social needs of young New Zealanders needs to be a priority in order to help to reduce our prison populations.
She has done extensive research on the incarceration of both male and female prisoners (particularly of indigenous peoples), and has found many common threads including 'the state as a parent' morphing into 'the state as a prison warden'.
Dr Tracey McIntosh talks to Kathryn Ryan.
Dr McIntosh, who is of Tūhoe descent, is also the Director of New Zealand's Māori Centre of Research Excellence. In 2012 she was the co-chair of the Children's Commissioner's Expert Advisory Group on Solutions to Child Poverty and she sits on a number of governance boards particularly in the area of social harm reduction, Dr McIntosh also teaches a creative writing course in Auckland Women's Prison.
Link: Maramatanga
