Police Ten 7 feeds racial stereotypes of Māori and Pasifika peoples in Aotearoa New Zealand.

Police Ten 7 is a reality crime show that follows the police of Aotearoa New Zealand in responding to antisocial and criminal activity. In the current study, we coded 24 episodes of Police Ten 7, screened between 2011 and 2021. For each episode, each offence depicted was coded into one of five categories (i.e., aggressive, driving, drug and alcohol, property, or other) and the ethnicity of the suspect was also coded. We had two hypotheses. First, that Māori and Pasifika will be more likely to be depicted as committing violent crimes than Pākehā suspects. Second, that the proportion of aggressive offences Māori and Pasifika are depicted committing on Police Ten 7 will be higher than that drawn from the National Annual Apprehension statistics. Both hypotheses were supported. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]