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In the initial phase of COVID-19, Aotearoa New Zealand was internationally praised for its pandemic response that included lockdowns to control the spread and work toward elimination. Community compliance with control measures was thus essential when pursuing elimination as a policy. Using a mixed-methods approach, we sought to explore whether New Zealand Police (NZP) were trusted to police the lockdown rules at Levels 4 and 3. We analyzed 1,020 survey responses comparing trust among respondents who had been stopped by NZP over the lockdown rules (contacts) with those who had not (non-contacts). We found that both contacts and non-contacts expressed greater trust in NZP to enforce the Level 4 than the Level 3 rules; contacts expressed less trust in NZP to enforce the lockdown rules than non-contacts; contacts perceived NZP more heavy-handed than non-contacts; contacts perceived NZP as only somewhat procedurally just and feeling somewhat encouraged to comply with the lockdown rules and; that unexpected high-profile policing-related events during the survey only affected contacts' trust significantly. We offer two explanations: (1) NZP were perceived as procedurally unjust or inconsistent in applying the lockdown rules, (2) members of the public and NZP learned the lockdown rules simultaneously. We caution that the unfamiliar character of pandemic policing may jeopardize trust in NZP even among segments of the population that typically express high levels of trust in NZP, that is, people of European descent. We conclude that community compliance with pandemic control measures is no matter to be dealt with by the criminal legal system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Decolonial academic discourse has gained substantial momentum since 2010, prompting the question of whether research on hyperincarcerated Indigenous peoples in settler-colonial societies has increased. Earlier research found a lack of engagement with this social problem in high-ranked criminology journals in the decade preceding 2010. This study focuses on the subsequent decade (2011–2020) to ascertain any discernible shifts. The discursive mass on hyperincarcerated populations (Indigenous, African American, Hispanic American) is determined, finding that it still fails to reach the critical mass required to mainstream the idea that most discussions of criminality cannot afford to remain colourblind considering lived realities. Publication-to-incarceration-rate ratios for hyperincarcerated populations are compared, finding that the relative silence regarding Indigenous peoples also continues. The study concludes that the surging decolonial debate had little effect on the quantity of topical research published in highranked mainstream criminology journals, calling for future research to investigate why and to address any qualitative changes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Women now compete in the Ultimate Fighting Championship for which Muay Thai is a feeder discipline. It is timely to analyze how the tools of this pugilist trade, women's bodies, are lived and discursively positioned. We explore how bodily attributes (strength and beauty) are positioned vis-a-vis women fighters by drawing on 17 interviews with women Muay Thai fighters. We argue while women are in control of their bodies and proud of their strength, normative narratives of fighting being unfeminine must be combatted. Theoretically, we expand discussion of gender and the body by deploying the 'pretty imperative' to examine how women's quotidian practices open space for other women fighters and by engaging the notion of ingenious agency to reveal women's strategic efforts for inclusion and acceptance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

International media have praised Aotearoa New Zealand for its response to the coronavirus pandemic. While New Zealand Police played a fundamental role in enforcing pandemic control measures, the policing landscape remained plural. This article employs Loader [2000. Plural policing and democratic governance. Social and legal studies, 9 (3), 323–345] model of plural policing to understand responses to public health emergencies. It identifies two forms of policing which were evident in Aotearoa during the COVID-19 lockdown that should be added to Loader's model. First, we argue that contexts with colonial history require that the model not only includes by-government and below-government policing but also next-to-government policing by Indigenous peoples – such as the 'community checkpoints' run by Māori. Second, and further developing Loader's model, we argue that the category of below-government policing be expanded to include 'peer-to-peer policing' in which government responsibilizes members of the public to subject each other to large-scale surveillance and social control. Since plural forms of policing affect each other's functionality and legitimacy, we argue that what happens at the synapses between policing nodes has profound implications for the process of community building. Because community building is essential to fighting pandemics, we conclude that the policing of pandemic intervention measures may require an expanded understanding and practice of plural policing to support an optimal public health strategy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A growing body of research investigates women's experiences within New Zealand's criminal justice system, and several studies have addressed the misrepresentation of crime's reality in news media. However, the discriminatory depiction of Indigenous women offenders in New Zealand's press has yet to receive scholarly attention. Indigeneity and gender are both critical factors because Māori women constitute the fastest growing segment of New Zealand's prison population, and media discourses help shape public consent to penal policies. To address this research gap, New Zealand newspaper articles featuring women offenders were collected over a 2-year period (2016–2018) and analysed for their use of neutralization and exacerbation techniques. The findings reveal that New Zealand newspapers distort our understanding of who is most affected by the criminal justice system and what crimes Pākehā1 and Māori women typically commit. Most importantly, stories about Pākehā women were more likely to use a favourable tone (56.5%), while stories about Māori women were more likely to take on an unfavourable tone (83.3%). Finally, motherhood, as an additional exacerbating factor, was mentioned nearly twice as often for Māori women. This article adds to the body of knowledge on the portrayal of Māori people in the media, linking it to public consent to governmental policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Indigenous women constitute the fastest growing segment of the prison population. Women inside have disproportionately experienced childhood sexual abuse (CSA). A key protective factor against CSA is living with both biological parents. Imprisonment removes fathers from daughters' homes. Yet, the link between male incarceration and girls' risk of CSA remains unexamined. A quantitative exploration of this risk in Aotearoa New Zealand, indicates that the disproportionate incarceration of Māori fathers in the 1980s exposed Māori daughters to a 5.5 times greater CSA risk. A theory of sexual structural violence through male mass incarceration may help explain high CSA victimization rates among Māori girls and incarcerated women, and the sudden increase of young Indigenous women behind bars. More qualitative research is required to verify this empirical exploration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

COVID-19 stories, especially from Aotearoa New Zealand, one of the leading nations 'winning' over the virus, will be important historical documentation. The 'team of five million' is writing its narratives of life with/out COVID-19 - stories of 'being kind,' of 'being in it together,' and simply 'loving your bubble.' These are narratives of success which need to be examined alongside the narratives that have been absent from public national discourse but complicate understandings of 'winning.' To that end, in this article we map out (alter) narratives from supermarket and healthcare workers and highlight their stories of living and caring under lockdown. We posit that we need to pay attention to (alter)narratives of winning over COVID-19 in order to pay attention to the bodies and spaces that are often invisible but make winning possible. Thus, we see (alter)narratives not as counter or anti to the nation's winning narrative, but rather essential and adjacent to it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Women fighting challenges conventional notions of femininity in many ways. A bleeding nose, bruised eyes and swollen lips embody perhaps masculine success but, for many, constitute failed femininity. Yet women fighters, who are attracting unprecedented media attention, are in novel ways forcing a re-imagination of femininity. This article draws on 17 in-depth semi-structured interviews with professional and amateur female Muay Thai fighters based in Thailand to explore the subversion and reinvention, and also reinforcement, of feminine norms. Theoretically, we advance the debate around fighting and femininity by developing the concept of bio-borders to investigate the presentation, protection and penetration of bodily femininity. We conclude that women fighters inspire a femininity recognising physical and emotional strength alongside conventional feminine norms of beauty, relationality and compliance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]