Gangs, Restorative Justice and Policy

Attached is a video of a presentation I gave in Mission, British Columbia, Canada in December 2010; filmed by Heartspeak Productions.

Cheers

Juan

Crime Control Policy and the Demonisation of Indigenous Youth

The attached link is a video recording of my keynote address to the 1st Australasian Youth Justice conference, hosted by the Australian Institute of Criminology, in May of 2013.

Enjoy

Juan

Is New Zealand's Policy Sector 'Evidence Based'? Part 2

One of my favourite movies is Usual Suspects, released in 1995.  The film contains some memorable dialogue, but the one line that has stuck in my mind is probably the most often quoted: “the greatest trick the devil ever played was convincing the world he didn’t exist”.  This quote refers to the deceptive practices employed by the ‘Evil One’ to divert attention away from the role he/she plays in the madness and pain of everyday life.  A similar deceit frames the New Zealand’s Policy Industry’s on-going attempts to convince both the public and its political masters that it is politically neutral.  In my experience the Policy Industry in New Zealand is much more successful in this endeavour with the public, while most politicians are well aware of the politicised nature of the public service.

These comments are qualified, however, by acknowledging that many members of the public service, in particular those doing the technical work (let’s call them the ‘policy proletariat’) try hard to adhere to the public service code of conduct and the theoretical and practice bases of this thing we call evidence-based policy (EBP).  However, apart from the odd exception, in my experience policy-making is a fraught process which often requires its practitioners to compromise these core values on a regular basis.  Why?  Because in reality, contemporary policy making in New Zealand is not much different from the supposed bad old days of opinion-based policy that existed before the rise of EBP.  In fact I argue that the ‘Industry’ is no less ideological than it ever was, and it certainly is far from the objective, politically neutral beast its exponents claim it to be.

There are a number of ways we can evidence the argument that the Policy Industry is political: firstly, it is a given that a number of the public service are members of registered political parties.  Some keep their political affiliations to themselves; while others openly declare them as is encouraged under the Public Service Code of Conduct (PSCC) (State Services Commission, 2007).  The PCSS stipulates that while it is the right of all policy workers to affiliate politically they must be circumspect when carrying out duties on behalf of any political entity.  More significantly it is possible to also argue that the public service is wedded to the political system through the fact that officials and institutions are compelled to support the implementation of the policies of the Government of the day.  The myth of the political neutrality of the public service is built in part on the fact that the PSCC directs officials to give full and frank advice to government ministers.  What this should mean in practice is that if existing evidence does not support the policy directives from Cabinet and indeed may cause harm to the public, then it is the duty of public servants to advise Ministers’ of this fact.  However, in reality this rarely happens, especially in the crime control sector, and when it does it is often more about protecting the reputation and resources of the agency and their Ministers’, and less about protecting the public from ‘bad’ policy. 

The political nature of the Policy Industry is, however, much more insidious and far reaching than these benign examples demonstrate.  The Industry can be charged with being political and partisan (as opposed to neutral) via the fact that while directed by Cabinet and beholden to it, it holds extensive power over the development and implementation of policy itself.  If you live in Wellington, New Zealand and work in the Industry long enough, you will hear politicians and media (and sometimes, but rarely, policy workers) state that policy is not made or dictated by Cabinet, but is controlled by the policy mandarins in the small geographical triangle that takes in the parliamentary precinct, the Terrace and much of Lambton Quay.  This point is often made tongue-in-cheek, but my ten years of experience working in the Industry leads me to argue that it holds true in many cases. 

The myth of political neutrality masks a two of sub-surface truisms that are not easily observed by external audiences.  These are that i) part of the ‘art of politics’ and therefore of policy-making (which is the textual articulation of political theory/ideology) is a theoretical or conceptual framework for explaining the world and how it works; ii) while individual members of agencies will have their own ‘theory of the world’, agencies utilise specific theoretical paradigms that match their institutional view of how the world works, and form the ideological bases for policy development.  For example, neo-liberal economics has been the dominant political and economic theory/philosophy for the development of economic policy by New Zealand’s Treasury agency since the mid-1980s; the Psychology of Criminal Conduct is the dominant theoretical paradigm in the development of prison policy by the Department of Corrections from the mid-1990s (Department of Corrections, 2013); and a form of neo-tribal orthodoxy underpins policy making in the Ministry of Maori Development (2013); and iii) agencies employ various rituals and associated activities that either mask the theoretical underpinnings of their processes or validate them over others.

Case Study: the Organised Crime Strategy

To demonstrate the political nature of policy making and the myth of the primacy of evidence, we need look no further than the highly inflammatory issue of gangs and crime.  On 7 May 2007, a two year old girl was murdered in Wanganui, the victim of a gang-related drive-by-shooting.  Understandably the incident caused outrage amongst the wider public and politicians.  Through the media, public figures, such as the Mayor of Wanganui, Michael Laws, called for ‘something to be done’ about the perceived violence and general lawlessness of ethnic gangs in the region (Wanganui District Council, 2007).  The Government’s response was swift: just a few days after the incident, public service officials were called upon by Ministers to brief them on the issues and potentially effective policy options.  Up to that point the only meaningful, albeit largely ineffective policy initiatives in place were the Ministry of Social Development-led inter-agency project called the Plan of Action: Improving Outcomes for Young People in Counties Manukau (Ministry of Social Development, 2006) and a joint Ministry of Maori Development/New Zealand Police project which utilised established (adult gang) leaders to mediate directly with so-called youth gangs in an attempt to dampen down tensions and reduce the potential for further violent confrontation between these groups.  The reality was that over the preceding decade or more the crime control and social policy sectors had an unwritten rule of not working with gangs, meaning no funding for gang members to develop social programmes or support for activities that involved gang members or their associates (although there are exceptions to this rule, such as the Ministry of Maori Development/whanau ora funding for gang-focused social programmes, but these are very exceptions to the unwritten rule of non-engagement which must surely be in violation of the 'rules' of EBP). 

Officials’ response to requests from Ministers about how best to respond to the Wanganui incident, was to revive the then grossly overdue Organised Crime Strategy (OCS) (Ministry of Justice, 2002) that was initially part of the larger Crime Reduction Strategy signed off by the Labour government in May 2001.  The Strategy identified seven priority areas for the wider criminal justice sector, of which organised crime was designated Priority Area 5 (family violence and community violence and sexual violence were priority areas one and two).  By the time of the Wanganui gang shooting, priority area five was the least developed, and certainly any formal strategy was by then almost six years overdue.

Work began in earnest on resurrecting the OCS in mid-2007.  It involved some of the usual strategies, tactics and rituals officials utilise in order to be seen to be busy when potentially nasty coordination problems arise in the public sector: firstly, lead agencies were empowered (in this case, Ministry of Justice, followed closely by the New Zealand Police); other important players were identified (for example, DPMC, Ministry of Social Development, and to a lesser extent the Ministries of Maori Development and Pacific Island Affairs); an inter-agency group established; a schedule of meetings agreed, along with priority work items (background papers, briefings to Ministers, Cabinet papers, etc) and tasks identified and allocated.  Given the political capital inherent in the gang-related incident in Wanganui, work on developing the OCS was given priority by Government, and therefore by participating agencies.  The fact that the lead agencies had failed to deliver on the promised organised crime strategy for some two to three years was never discussed at formal meetings and overlooked in official documentation.  Regardless, this overdue strategic item provided agencies with a ready vehicle to be seen to respond meaningfully to what Cabinet clearly considered to be a politically-charged, perhaps even electorally damaging issue.

All of the above strategies and activities can be viewed, individually or collectively, as rituals of (in)activity.  In the event of a highly charged, political issue arising, agencies (individually or collectively) swing into ‘action’, utilising the well-established rituals of activity outlined above to serve as markers of responsiveness, concern for public safety and expertise.  The long overdue OCS became a vehicle through which officials and agencies could demonstrate their ability to respond quickly and efficiently.  Having no doubt briefed Minister(s) on the situation, including claiming that the Strategy was an appropriate and effective mechanism for responding to the Wanganui incident, officials then moved to deploy another set of rituals, referred to here as the rituals of deception.  This set of rituals is commonly used by criminal justice officials who need to retrofit policy to a social issue for which it is unsuited.

Retrofitting in the case of the OCS, refers to the fact that other policy mechanisms and strategies already existed through which to create meaningful policy; the original intent and focus of the proposed OCS did not correlate to the type of social issue that developed in Wanganui, and the lack of evidence that an OCS-style approach would demonstrably alter the social conditions which led to the Wanganui incident.  Rituals of deception are common in situations of policy retrofitting: they enable officials and agencies to mask the fact that their activities are more about managing potential coordination problems than about constructing meaningful ‘real world’ solutions.  The coordination problems that were the target of the OCS-related rituals of deception were masking a long-overdue piece of supposedly important strategic work, the historical lack of meaningful policy response to gang-related violence and gangs per se and the complete failure of the preferred suppression and surveillance policies since the mid-1980s to solve the so-called gang problem.  All of these coordination problems carry the potential to negatively impact institutional credibility with Cabinet and the public and inter-agency relationships. 

Why the deceit?

There are a number ways to explain and understand why supposedly neutral policy mandarins become involved in the politics of policy and utilise rituals of (in)activity and deception.  At base level it has to do with affinity and access: the higher up the managerial decision-making structure one gets, the closer you are to the political decision-making process and the politicians who ultimately make those decisions.  Accordingly, the more one has ready access to political authority the more one pays attention to the political consequences of policy design and implementation.  In other words, the higher up the management food chain you move, the less concerned with the technical development of policy you become, and the more you focus on what is referred to in Wellington as the ‘front page of the Dominion-Post test’: namely, how will a particular policy or policy issue look in the news media when it is released?  A further issue for consideration is what is the risk of negative media publicity to Cabinet and the policy sector?  In other words, senior managers can be viewed as political commissars who carry out the dual roles of educating the technocrats on the political expectations of Cabinet and the Ministry, and providing political risk assessment and protection services for Chief Executives, their agencies and Cabinet Ministers. 

Of course it can be countered that the argument I present here robs policy workers of their ‘agency’.  However this position presupposes that policy workers are empowered to carry out independent articulation of ‘free thought’ in the politically charged environment of a policy shop to begin with.  The authors experience was that this was rare and most definitely discouraged.  The reality of the policy environment and the position of the policy proletariat is effectively summarised by legal theorist Stanley Fish (1989: 141) who describes professional analysts not as free agents, but as "embedded practitioners" whose values, canons of evidence, normative measures and theoretical schema are proscribed by his or her professional community.  As a result, the potential for professional objectivity or political neutrality are, by definition, curtailed significantly by their personal, and their agencies proximity to, political power. 

The policy commissars and their direct line managers, who may be referred to collectively as the Policy Elite, also have the unenviable task of adhering to and implementing the policy platforms of incoming (newly elected) governments, along with new policy initiatives dreamt up by the current government.  This can be a nightmare at times, especially if the government’s policy goes against the majority or all of the available research evidence, as often occurs in the criminal justice sector (see below).  The case study of the OCS and policy response to the Wanganui incident highlights the myth of the political neutrality of the public service.  This example also underlines the role of ritual in masking the way(s) in which officials and agencies will bow to political and media pressure and construct policy responses ill-suited to the specific social issue that is dominating front page news at a particular time. 

References

Department of Corrections (2013) Annual Report 2012/13. Wellington: Department of Corrections.

Fish S (1989) Doing What Comes Naturally: Change, Rhetoric, and the Practice of Theory in Literary and Legal Studies. Durham and London: Duke University Press.

Ministry of Justice (2002) Crime Reduction Strategy. Wellington: Ministry of Justice

Ministry of Maori Development (2013) Measuring Performance and Effectiveness for Maori: Key Themes from the Literature. Wellington: Ministry of Maori Development.

Ministry of Social Development (2006) Plan of Action: Improving Outcomes for Young People in Counties Manukau.  Wellington: Ministry of Social Development. 

State Services Commission (2007) Public Service Code of Conduct.  Wellington: State Services Commission.

Wanganui District Council (2007) Toddler Death: A Sad, Appalling Tragedy.  Wanganui: Wanganui District Council. 

Is New Zealand's Policy Sector 'Evidence-Based'? Part 1

A Story of Deceit and Manipulation

In the early 2000s I made a career decision that appeared at the time to be a monumental failure; I decided to leave the relative safety of Te Puni Kokiri (New Zealand's Ministry of Maori Development (see footnote)  to take a position at the Department of Corrections.

Within about 2 years I realised that the move had been highly beneficial to my development as a critic of crime control policy.  I lasted all of 6 months before deciding to return to Te Puni Kokiri; not a long time to work in a policy position, but enough to provide me with some invaluable insights into the workings of the criminal justice policy sector. What follows are some of the insights I learnt during my short 'sentence' at Corrections, many of which hold true for all crime control agencies in New Zealand:

The worst way to run a government agency

... was the 'model' used at Corrections at the time, which was to set the General Managers of the various sections (Policy, Community Corrections, Psych Services, Public Prisons, etc) against each other so they competed for the agency's limited resources, and for the attention of the CEO.  The rationale behind this management style seemed to be the belief that the ensuing competition would result in enhanced quality of output.... which showed the genius who implemented this style knew little about human nature. The situation this strategy engendered at Corrections was frankly bizarre as time and again I observed supposedly adult, experienced public servants stabbing each other in the back, engaging in petty, immature turf wars and killing off well constructed projects in order to protect their own interests.  All of this experience was fantastic training..... for being a kindergarten teacher, but did little to engender collegiality or the development of effective penal policy (whatever that is).  To be fair to Corrections though, the management process in place at the time was simply a mirror image of the way in which the crime control sector engaged with each other, as I soon learnt during my involvement in inter-agency programmes such as Effective Interventions that began in the mid-2000s.

Iconoclast's will not be tolerated

Speaking 'against the grain' or taking the position of the devil's advocate was not acceptable.  When I arrived at Corrections the agency was in the process of implementing the Integrated Offender Management (IOM) initiative.  Imported more or less whole from Canada, IOM was intended to streamline the delivery of prison-based services to inmates to ensure their 'sentence plans' matched their 'criminogenic needs', such as anger management and alcohol and drug dependency.  In order to 'sell' the programme within and outside the agency, a whole tier of marketing practitioners were identified, called (and I am not making this up) 'IOM Champions'.  The key task of the 'Champions' was to market IOM, and one way they sought to do so was to hold information sessions with staff.  These sessions encouraged 'full and frank' discussion on the nature and impact of IOM, or so we were told. Before attending staff were assured they could ask critical questions or make critical statements, and that anything they said would be treated confidentially. 

In my first week on the job I attended one such session, during which my manager asked what I thought was an important question: 'how do we know IOM will work for Maori, when no engagement has been held with Maori - not with Maori members of staff, Maori service providers, and especially not Maori inmates/offenders'. The answer?  He didn't get one. The response?  The IOM 'Champion' reported him to the General Manger who proceeded to tear strips off him for daring to criticise IOM and thereby setting a bad example for his staff. Needless to say I decided after that not to attend any more sessions or to tell other staff what I actually thought of the policy.  

Science and evidence-based policy are not king

The rise of IOM coincided with a revolution within many of the crime control agencies wherein 'science' and 'evidence' became the basis of policy-making, the development of interventions, and allocation of resources.  At least that is what the policy sector told itself and the public.  Quite often this was not the case, with pertinent evidence being totally ignored, or the evidence that suits a predetermined policy outcome favoured over the messy stuff, you know.... the evidence contradicts a Cabinet Minister's pet project (see Tauri, 2009 for a discussion of this process).

A recent, classic example of policy implementation that ignored available evidence was the government's decision to introduce boot camps.  No firm evidence existed to indicate that this intervention would result in positive outcomes for youth, but it was implemented regardless. Why? Well, there are a number of reasons but in this particular case the answers are 'populist politics' and 'ideology': to understand how such a poorly performing crime control intervention could be introduced, you have to ignore the rhetoric that New Zealand's policy sector is apolitical (as in neutral) and that policy decisions are always based on scientifically-derived evidence.  This is often not the case in the crime control sector. The introduction of boot camps was purely ideological... of the 'get tough on crime and bring back military-style discipline for those young thugs' type you will often hear in RSA bars; the 'a good thrashing never did me any harm' approach to social policy. 

I wish to be clear about one thing - sometimes evidence has a significant impact on policy development and implementation.  My argument here is sometimes it does not.  The policy process can be, and often is, highly political and ideological, with interventions and policies influenced as much by who a Minister was drinking with last week, as it is on independent, empirical evidence.           

Ritual and myth are king

... and when empirical evidence is NOT highly influential in policy making, I observed that other strategies came to the fore, including the liberal use of ritual to maintain the sacred myths of the public service, namely the myth of political neutrality and the myth of evidence-based policy.  In Part 2 I will focus on the rituals utilised by the policy sector to sustain these myths, including the rituals of (in)activity, rituals of deception and cherry-picking rituals; watch this space (in the meantime see Tauri, 2014).

Postscript - When is an Academic Journal NOT an Academic Journal?

The answer? When it is set up and run by a government agency.  

Mildly related to the previous discussion was an announcement made in 2013 of the publication of a new academic journal called Practice: The New Zealand Corrections Journal.  I thought 'excellent, finally the New Zealand academy is getting off its butt and doing something to enhance critical crime control scholarship in this country'..... sadly I was wrong on all counts.

  

No doubt we've all heard the saying 'if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, then it must be a duck'? Well the Department of Corrections 'journal' defies that lovely bit of logic. It 'looks' like a journal and when you hold it in your hot hands if even 'feels' like a journal, but sadly it quacks like an ACT Party candidate talking about being 'tough on crime' during an Epsom constituency meeting.  

Let me be clear on one thing, government agencies have every right to publicise their work; in fact they have an obligation to do so. We as taxpayers have a right to know how they are spending our money... just don't expect them to tell you if it is not effective as that pertinent point is usually ignored completely.  They have a right to publish the material in whatever form their over-priced 'marketing' experts tell them will most effectively spread the gospel.

However, they do not have the right to treat us as if we are stupid, and in marketing their rag as a 'journal' that is exactly what Corrections is doing.  However, I do have to take my hat off to the department, the 'journal' represents a wonderful piece of conjuring worthy of a Las Vegas magic show: take the marketing, publicity and policy materials produced by the agency and its 'academic' friends (meaning those academics who produce work in line with the ideological and theoretical position of the agency) and publish it in journal form.  So far, this is exactly what we are being served up by Corrections.  The vast majority of the articles are written by Corrections functionaries, and few of the articles engage with critical questions being posited by independent academics or report on research using methodologies that allow the voices of those most impacted by corrections policies to be heard.  And most importantly, the editorship, and therefore the article selection process, is overseen by a high level functionary within Correction; hardly a recipe for ensuring that independent, critical scholarship will make the pages of the 'journal'.

It is easy to figure out why the agency has gone down this route: through the 'journal' it is seeking to give its marketing material more of an 'academic' look and feel in order, hopefully, to enhance its credibility on the intellectual market.  But one word of advice to the editor: you will be judged primarily on the content of the articles you publish and hardly at all on whether the 'look' of your magazine matches closely with academic journals such as Punishment or Criminology.

I think the idea of an academic journal like Practice is a good one.  In fact, given the paucity of academic scholarship on crime control in New Zealand I would like to see its name and focus changed to Criminal Justice or something similar.  But having done that you will need to make it more independent.  So why not turn it into a joint venture by running it through an editorial board made up of both academics and policy workers, with two Chief Editors, one from policy and one independent to ensure it doesn't become a mouth piece for your agency.  Or you could align it with an academic institution that has a criminology focus, such as AUT, University of Auckland, Victoria University or the University of Canterbury. It would also be a good idea to mix the content; a few articles from the policy sector, a few from independent researchers.  Then, and maybe then, you can call your magazine a 'journal'. However, in order to achieve all this you need to change your attitude to independent research... you need to allow it to occur.  

Oh, I know you will be able to cite a few examples since 2001 where you allowed PhD students or other researchers 'in' to prisons to do research... research that is likely contracted by the agency or heavily vetted to ensure it serves the needs of the agency, and is unlikely to result in critical findings that might embarrass Corrections, or worse, its Minister. I am talking about the strategy that Corrections appears to be following the past few years of blocking critical research that does not suit the agency's needs.  And it is blocking independent researchers from going about their business, by using excuses like 'the information that will be gathered doesn't match with our trending data' or with 'our strategic priorities', or some similar nonsense.  And if that fails Corrections can fall back on well-worn excuses such as potential 'safety' issues for both inmates and researchers, or muster issues or whatever else they can think of.  And yet other jurisdictions, most notably the United Kingdom, has in the past had few issues with allowing researchers to enter prisons to carry out their work.  The evidence for this is the significant amount (comparatively speaking) of independent research materials published in academic journals on prisons and corrections policies in that and other comparable jurisdictions.  The problem in the New Zealand context seems to created from the intersection,a dangerous combination, of three factors: 1) a policy elite who appear to believe themselves above critique, 2) a policy elite who believe they are not answerable to the public, and 3) who are supported by a political elite who share the same arrogance and aversion to independent scrutiny.  

Let me be even more frank, policy workers and government agencies do not always have the answers and, more importantly because they are so close to their own work they often can't see the wood for the trees.  In other words it is sometimes very difficult for them to step back and critically analysis the impact or their work or identify the questions that need to be asked and answered by research. Sometimes the questions and topics 'the community', which includes independent researchers, inmates, ex-inmates, inmates and ex-inmates families and service providers, believes are important will not match those of the policy sector; and sometimes the communities questions are the right ones to be asking. Remember, a government agency is part of the public service and derives its resources from the public purse.  Therefore, it is time for policy practitioners to stop acting as though they are not answerable to the public.

Oh, and it would be a good idea if they stopped treating us as though we are stupid: Corrections, change the name of your publication to The Corrections Quarterly or perhaps even more suitable, CQ, or something similar that reflects that it is in fact a magazine, because we are not being fooled in the slightest.    

Footnote
I have often thought that the Ministry of Maori Development (emphasis on the 'development' bit) was a weird name for an agency with a budget at that time of around 23 million, and that was often severely hamstrung by Cabinet and core agencies such as Treasury, SSC, Ministry of Social Development, etc, those with comparatively massive budgets and significantly more political capital, from actually doing anything concrete to facilitate 'Maori development'.

References
Tauri, J (2009) The Maori Social Science Academy and Evidence-Based Policy, MAI Review, 1: 1-11. 
Tauri, J (2014) Ritual and the Social Dynamics of Policy Making in New Zealand, in P.Howland (ed.) Ritual in Aotearoa New Zealand: An Effusive Introduction (forthcoming - draft available on Academia).  

Free Offer - Fully Formed Indigenous Justice Units + Minor/Major in Critical Indigenous Justice

Tired of Foucault (and who isn't!); bored with Wacquant; want to slap the next person who references David Garland? Then have I got an offer for you!

Free to a good home - fully developed academic units and a Minor/Major in Critical Perspectives on Indigenous Justice. The package includes:

• Outlines, reading lists for the following units - Indigenous perspectives on justice (general, introductory unit); International Indigenous perspectives on crime and justice; policing diverse communities; and Indigenous theories of crime and justice.

• Background/rationale papers supporting the implementation of above units that will blow the mind of your Faculty/University teaching and learning 'experts' who wouldn't know an Indigenous issue if it bit them on the a*s... and

• Background/rationale papers for establishing a Minor or Major in Indigenous Justice.

But wait, there's more!

You will also receive:

• USB filled with over 300 journal articles, book chapters, research documents on a wide range of Indigenous-related justice issues, including policing, punishment, family violence, white privilege in criminal justice; racism in sentencing and much more!

Make your University the 'point of difference' by being the only one in Australia and New Zealand (except for the University of Auckland, which offers a unit or 2) to offer students the opportunity to learn about Indigenous issues from a critical Indigenous perspective; reject the tired old strategy of 'integrating' our issues within the mainstream (as in 'Western') criminology units! Support Indigenous scholarship!

Packaging and posting (as in email!) is free!

Email Juan on marcellos2006@hotmail.com

Love and hugs 

Racism, White Privilege and Scary Brown Boys... and the Development of a Critical Indigenous Justice Studies

Hi all

Below is a link to an interesting commentary on racism, white privilege and the demonisation of brown boys - enjoy:

http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2014/01/27/there-problem-discerning-racism-white-privilege-southwest-airlines-flight-30000-feet

Research Project - Maori, Pacific and Indigenous Scholars Experience of the Academy

As reported previously there have been a number of positive developments within the Indigenous Academy, some of which will be discussed below.  I want to take this opportunity to provide background detail on a research project that I am involved with at present, focused on Maori, Pacific and Indigenous scholars experiences of the academy.

The project was developed by, and led by Dr David Mayeda, a researcher and lecturer at the University of Auckland in the Department of Sociology.  The aim of this study is to explore Māori, Pacific and Indigenous experiences of the Academy, with a significant focus on the role of Indigenous academics as leaders, both in the academy and their communities development.small group or individual interviews with Māori, Pacific and international Indigenous academicians. The research project aims to identify the factors that assist Māori, Pacific and Indigenous academicians in their professional development. Some of these factors may include relationships with colleagues, balancing research, service and teaching responsibilities, family support, and professional mentoring.  The research also aims to identify the barriers Indigenous academics face in advancing their careers, and carrying out the research that they and their communities believe is essential to enhancing the social well being of Indigenous peoples.  

If you would like more information on the project, or wish to participate, please contact Dr Mayeda via his email address d.mayeda@auckland.ac.nz, or the author of this blog, Juan Tauri, on marcellos2006@hotmail.com - we will happily forward a detailed information sheet to you.

Advancing Critical Indigenous Justice Studies

A key highlight of the last 12 months was evidence of an increasing number of Indigenous and non-Indigenous colleagues publishing critical material that privileges the Indigenous perspective on social justice issues.  I had the privilege last year of collaborating with many of these individuals while developing of a special edition of a journal on counter-colonial perspectives (see below for information on the edition).  The work of Stolo academic Dr Wenona Victor on the inequities of the Canadian criminal justice and child care and protection systems and Dr Tamari Kitossa on the policing of black youth, augers well for critical Indigenous scholarship in that particular jurisdiction.  There has also been an increase in critical Maori/non-Maori scholarship in New Zealand, driven by the likes of  University of Auckland academics Dr Robert Webb, Dr Khylie Quince and Assoc. Professor Tracey McIntosh, and Dr Antje Deckert of AUT University.  

Tracey's ground breaking work on Maori experiences of the borstal system of the 1960s/1970s and imprisonment generally, is especially important given the paucity of research on this issue. In the Australian context the rise of Dr Thalia Anthony has given me hope that the golden age of critical Indigenous-inspired research in Australia, is not yet over.  Her recent publications and presentations on the history of colonial, racist policing on Palm Island, and the criminalisation of Aboriginal peoples through social policy in the Northern Territory, are as good as critical, engaging research gets in the contemporary context.  What is also pleasing (and important) is the support we are receiving from the 'old guard' (no disrespect intended), including Professors Chris Cunneen, Harry Blagg and Gillian Cowlishaw in Australia, the esteemed Maori lawyer, Moana Jackson in New Zealand, and the Nigerian criminologist Biko Agozino.

It seems to me the that recent increase in scholarship coincided with a parallel increase in the number of Indigenous academic journals in the last 10 to 15 years.  In the past we relied on the A and B journals of the Western academy for publication of our work.  However, as Dr Antje Deckert's recent research has demonstrated, these so-called 'top shelf' journals rarely publish Indigenous-centred, critical work that privilege the experiences of Indigenous peoples.  It is obvious that we are increasingly turning to Indigenous journals to publish our work, such as the New Zealand-based journals Mai Review and AlterNative, the African Journal of Criminal Justice, and North American based publications such as International Indigenous Policy Journal and Indigenous Policy Journal.  There is a definite trend in the increase of critical Indigenous justice scholarship, namely that we are increasingly turning away from the journals of the Western academy, and choosing to publish in our own.

There are a number of projects on the go for 2014 and out-years that are designed to support the increase in activity in the area of critical Indigenous justice studies, including:

Publication of a Special Edition on Counter-Colonial Criminologies and Indigenous Perspectives

As stated in an earlier blog, a special edition on 'Counter Colonial Perspectives on Indigenous Justice' is currently being developed for publication in the African Journal of Criminology and Justice Studies. Right now, Dr Antje Deckert, my co-guest editor and I are in the process of completing the peer review process.  We hope to have the edition formally published in the next few months.  The contributors to the special edition include:

Professor Biko Agozino - Virginia Tech

Dr Tamari Kitossa - Brock University

Dr Andrea Smith - University of California

Associate Professor Tracey McIntosh - University of Auckland

Dr Robert Webb - University of Auckland

Dr Antje Deckert - AUT University

Juan Tauri - University of Wollongong

Professor Harry Blagg - University of Western Australia

Dr Thalia Anthony - University of Technology Sydney

Dr Wenona Victor - University of Fraser Valley

Joey Lywak - University of Winnipeg.

Dr Deckert and I are extremely grateful to Professor Biko Agozino for organising the transfer of the special edition to the AJCJS.  We can think of no better home for critical Indigenous/non-Indigenous scholarship like this.

The International Journal of Indigenous Justice (IJIJ)

Given the experiences of myself and other contributors to the above special edition, we have decided to develop a new journal, tentatively titled The International Journal of Indigenous Justice.  We have found a home for the journal at the University of Wollongong (Australia).  A big thanks to Associate Professor Evan Poata-Smith for making this happen.  The new journal will focus on publishing critical commentaries on the Indigenous experience of criminal justice.  Professor Poata-Smith, Dr Robert Webb, Dr Antje Deckert and I will be developing the journal throughout 2014, with a view to launching the first edition in 2015.  Watch this space for further information.

An International Conference on Aboriginal and Maori Social Science

Lastly, Assoc. Professor Evan Poata-Smith and I are currently organising a conference on Aboriginal and Maori social science, to be held at the University of Wollongong in late 2016.  Further information on the conference will be made available through this blog and my Face Book page Indigenous Criminologists, over the coming months.

Cheers

Juan Tauri

Deletion of Posts

Hi readers

Please note that I have deleted three recent posts that deal with the issues of racist, white privileged conduct in the academy.  At this stage I cannot discuss in detail the reasons for the removal of the three posts.

The majority of text in the deleted blogs relate to broad issues the Indigenous academy has with the white privileged conduct of some of our western colleagues; issues identified and discussed in research and literature by a number of Indigenous scholars published over the past 3 decades.  Other text reported on some of the positive activities being pursued by the Indigenous academy at this time. None of this material can be said to pertain directly to, or be the exclusive experience of the author; they are in fact part of the Indigenous academic lexicon, and as such belong to all of us.

All the general material from the 3 postings will be combined in a new blog that will be released in a few days - minus case studies deriving from the author's personal experiences of white privilege and racism.  The blog will focus on reporting on significant projects currently being pursued by members of the Indigenous Academy to enhance the development of a Critical Indigenous Studies, including a new journal and a special edition on counter-colonial criminologies.  The blog will also report on a research project on Indigenous leadership and experiences of the academy currently being carried out by Dr David Mayeda of the University of Auckland (New Zealand). Those of you involved in the Academy, as current or former academics, will be invited to participate in the project.  

Kind regards

Juan Tauri