Pursuit Practice: Media Representations, Policy and the Lived Experiences of Police Chases in New Zealand

Abstract

The pervasiveness and proliferation of media representations has formed public knowledge and perpetuates particular themes and attitudes towards offenders in society. Further, the synthesis with official rhetoric contributes to overly retributive responses, evidenced in the Fleeing Driver policy in force in New Zealand. Understanding how public knowledge production occurs in criminal justice policy is of critical importance when reviewing the often-disproportionate responses to fleeing drivers in New Zealand. By understanding how public rhetoric is formed by both media institutions and official New Zealand Police policy review, greater illumination of why Police chase offenders can be achieved. Qualitative means informed this research. A content analysis, which coded particular themes offered within four official reports on fleeing drivers by the New Zealand Police and the Independent Police Conduct Authority, coupled with a discourse analysis of 412 articles from the New Zealand Herald between 2011 and 2019, sought to understand how institutions in society framed, explained and justified police pursuits. Both official documents and media representations frequently justified the current policy approach to fleeing drivers, despite rising social consciousness towards the ill effects of high-speed chases and a growing international example of the move away from such retributive responses, towards more discouraging policies. The effect of this representation is tolimit the ability for discussion around alternatives within public discourse, through the smothering of any potential change because the focus is the assumption that all are serious offenders requiring apprehension. Whilst chases for violent offenders remain undeniably justified, the rabid hunt for non-violent, minor traffic offenders appears overwhelmingly disproportionate. Alternative policies, such as the Tasmanian and the Queensland examples, offer a glimpse of hope in terms of enlightened and progressive pursuit policy