Presentation to the Griffith University Symposium: Bringing the 'Alternative' Back into Restorative Justice, Wednesday 25 November 2020

Kia ora all

Here is the link to my recorded keynote of the Griffith University Symposium Bringing the 'Alternative' Back into Restorative Justice, held on Wednesday 25 November 2020.

The title of the presentation was 'Restorative Justice in the Land of the Long White Lie'

Māori, Family Group Conferencing and the Mystifications of Restorative Justice

The following blog offers up text from a presentation by Paora Moyle (in absentia) and I, assisted on the day by Moana Jackson, at the Social Movement, Resistance, and Social Change Conference held at Massey University Albany, 6-8 September 2017.

Introduction
Feted by the demi-gods of restorative justice, celebrated by advocates and policy entrepreneurs alike, the Family Group Conferencing (FGC) forum is often presented as reinvigorating the practice of ‘traditional' western restorative justice (RJ) processes, assisted by a respectful, judicious application of Indigenous philosophies and cultural practices. The FGC forum is also frequently depicted by RJ advocates as a culturally appropriate and empowering justice mechanism for indigenous peoples, including Māori. To date, however, there has been little empirical research that investigates these claims as they relate to the experiences of indigenous FGC service providers, and indigenous community members and representatives involved in FGC forums.

In this presentation, we offer primary research from one of the authors (Moyle) on Māori whānau (families) and community member’s experiences of the FGC forum. This research builds on Moyle’s (2013, 2014) previous work on Māori social worker experiences with FGC. We examine in detail Māori whānau and community member’s perspectives on the ability of the forum to enable them to have significant input into decisions regarding issues related to child care and protection, and youth justice issues. Drawing from this research we challenge claims made by RJ advocates and policy entrepreneurs that the forum offers Māori a culturally appropriate and empowerment justice process.

The Mystification of the Family Group Conference
Elsewhere we have argued that one of the marketing strategies utilised by members of the restorative justice industry, especially in setter colonial contexts, is the persistent, mythological representation of interventions like the FGC forum as being founded on Indigenous cultural principles and practice.  The functional perspective given to the role of myth in relation to the law is effectively summarised by Cavello who contends that myth operates to ‘construct reality by organising experience and perception, and that law’s reality appears to primarily express the perspective or mythology of a particular social group’. We argue that much of the restorative justice field within contemporary, globalised criminal justice lends itself to the power of a functional analysis of the role of myth in crime control, most especially the problematic elements of myth building and maintenance, namely the process of mystification.

In order to distinguish the functional role of mystification within the broader process of myth construction, Cavello (1992, pp. 29-30) writes that in contemporary societies, myth and mystification, while often co-existing, have opposite functions:

"[M]yth is used to clarify, to reveal truth, to explain sense and experience, and to guide people to a deeper understanding and appreciated of their reality - their individual selves, their society, their world - then mystification is employed to obfuscate, to confuse, to hide meaning and significance, or to imply it where there is none".

The purpose of mystifications in the RJ context is to make the movement, its objectives, its reason d'etre “seem inevitable, eternal, and externally produced”. One area where this process has been especially potent is in advocate’s claims that its core principles are imbued with, or founded upon, the philosophies and cultural practices of Indigenous peoples. This is a point Richards highlights when she observes that "[r]estorative justice’ is variously portrayed, for example, as being ‘consistent with indigenous custom, being ‘based on’ or ‘underpinned by’ indigenous customs, ‘arising out of’, ‘being fed by’, ‘owing a debt to’ or being ‘embedded in’ indigenous traditions, and/or having been ‘established by’ indigenous communities".

We contend that it is through the activities of advocates of the FGC that we observe the practice and impact of the mystification process writ large, especially when advocates of the forum claim that:
1) Construction of the Act that introduced the FGC was influenced by Māori concerns for the prevalence of institutionally racist and culturally inappropriate practices within the New Zealand criminal justice system;
2) Because the FGC and Māori justice protocols both share ‘restorative elements’ – indeed the FGC components derive directly from Māori, its use demonstrates the ability of the formal system to culturally sensitise itself, and address the justice needs of Māori in meaningful ways; and
3) That it was designed in part to enable Māori families/communities to manage the response to Māori youth offending (more about this issue later).

The persistent mystification of the FGC forum has resulted in the alleged Indigenous foundations of the forum acquiring the status of an uncontestable ‘truth’. This situation persists despite growing critical research and literature that exposes the imprecision of the aforementioned origin myths, including Mike Doolan’s (2005, p. 1), one of the primary architects of the 1989 legislation, admission that “those of us who were involved in the policy development process leading up to the new law had never heard of restorative justice”. Doolan (2005, p. 1) further acknowledges that the primary goals of the forum were to hold youth offenders responsible for their offending behaviour, and reduce referrals to the Youth Court, and not to provide Māori whānau with an avenue to “control responses to the offending of their youth”.  Today we seek to problematise the mystification of the FGC forum as it relates to oft-repeated claims of cultural appropriateness and empowerment of Māori. We situate our claims in prior research from Moyle, in primary research presented here for the first time. Over the past two and a half decades these claims have been consistently replicated in a significant amount of criminological literature.

Exposing the Gap Between Mystification and Lived Experience
Thematic analysis of the interviews with Māori practitioners (Moyle, 2013; 2014) and preliminary findings from ongoing research with whānau  participants, identified a number of key themes, two of which we will discuss here, namely a lack of cultural responsiveness, and the mystical origins of the FGC.

A Lack of Cultural Responsiveness and Capability
In the first of the two projects undertaken by Moyle, Māori practitioners involved in criminal justice and child care and protection were asked about their experiences of the FGC as practiced in New Zealand. Participants' reported that in many instances FGC involving Māori clients was often impacted by a lack of cultural competence by non-Māori professionals involved.  This, along with what they believed was the biased application of rules, created significant barriers for whānau in attaining positive outcomes from the process. 

Several of the participants spoke about the inappropriate conduct of officials involved in the FGC process. They reported this as flowing form the eurocentric, monoculturalist foundations of New Zealand' youth justice and the statutory social work systems, which has resulted in a 'one world view, one size fits all' standardised approach to engaging with a socio-culturally diverse clientele. Imported risk assessment tools were viewed as particularly problematic because their construction rendered practitioners incapable of considering relevant historical factors (i.e. colonisation), and contemporary factors (i.e. institutional racism and systemic bias) that participants believe contribute to Māori over-representation in New Zealand's criminal justice and child care and protection systems.

While participants shared some positive accounts of the FGC experience, overall their engagement with practice was negative. For example, a key findings from the whānau project was that by-and-large, mainstream non-Māori social workers did not know how to engage with them. For example, participant 19 stated that:

"The family group conference is about as restorative as it is culturally sensitive.... in the same way Pakeha [European] social workers believe they are competent enough to work with our people.... Pakeha think they're the natural ordinary community against which all other ethnicities are measured".

Participant 7 also commented that:

"In the FGC we were talking about how ‘Pākeha’ the caregiver training was when most kids in care are Māori. The social worker said, “our training teaches all prospective parents how to be culturally sensitive... culture is important to us (to child protection) but the health and wellbeing of a child must come first.” Like, being Māori is secondary, an add-on, or a choice!"

Moyle’s (2013) research with Māori practitioners showed that mainstream social workers, despite being professionally accredited as culturally competent to work with Māori, often did not understand, value or put into practice fundamental elements of a Māori worldview, such as whakapapa (genealogy/family connections). Often they did not understand that whakapapa is more than just genealogy, and is in fact fundamental to a Māori child’s cultural and spiritual identity, long term development and wellbeing. Consequently, those social workers may not reasonably investigate family connected to a Māori child. The implication of this, an issue also identified by Pakura (2005), is that it hinders the potential for enhanced and meaningful whānau involvement in the FGC process.

The Mystical Origins of the Family Group Conferencing Forum
A further thread of FGC disempowerment for Māori was linkages between the idealised origin myths of the FGC, and the actual practice of conferencing. Participants in Moyle’s research talked about how Māori have been indoctrinated with the FGC’s potential to be culturally responsive because it was presented as based on a Māori model of restorative justice. While some participants agreed with this representation, most did not, including participant 4 in Moyle’s current research with whānau, presented here, who stated that the “family group conferencing was never a Māori process... (laughing) the Pākehā took the whānau hui, colonised it and then cheekily sold it back to the native”.

While policy entrepreneurs and RJ advocates often represent the FGC as culturally appropriate and ‘Indigenous inspired’, the majority of Moyle’s research participants in both her practitioner and whānau projects experience align with the view of Māori commentators such as Love (2002) and Tauri (1998) that the process is as an attempt by the state to Indigenise child care and protection and youth justice through the co-option of Māori cultural practices. While it is possible to argue that the state members of the RJ industry have successfully mystified the forum, the largely symbolic use of Māori culture has not translated to effective practice, with the majority of participants from Moyle’s current research with whānau participants describing the process as culturally inappropriate and disempowering. Participants align this critique with the way that forum-related practice undermined and even at times excluded Māori cultural expertise. This shortcoming in practice is exemplified through the experiences of participant 21, a kaumatua (elder, who commented that:

"CYF (Child Youth & Family) said I couldn’t attend the FGC because I wasn’t whānau. But the whānau wanted a tikanga process and I was the kaumatua. Then the next week CYFs ring and ask me to attend a different FGC... talk about ‘dial a kaumatua'!"

What do Māori Want?

Moyle’s (2013, 2014) recent studies as well as the research with Māori practitioners and whānau participants presented here demonstrate that many experience the FGC as culturally inappropriate and disempowering, as ‘enforcement-based’ rather than ‘strength-based’. Given that this is their experience, it begs the question what do Māori want to make the process more meaningful?

Participants identified a range of policy changes and alterations to FGC practice they believe would enhance outcomes for their whānau and communities. The first significant change relates to the way in which youth justice and child care and protection policy is developed. Specifically, participants wanted policy makers to reconsider their preference for importing socially and culturally inappropriate interventions and instead, work directly with Māori communities to develop effective solutions that reflect New Zealand’s indigenous context. In terms of FGC process, participants wanted power sharing partnerships developed between the service agencies and Māori communities and providers. They also stressed the need for greater emphasis on community-based initiatives to deliver real changes in the lives of Māori participants, as opposed to the current preference for a top-down, managerialist approach to programme delivery, and over-emphasis on administrative, measurable outcomes such as fiscal responsibility and individual accountability.

Simply put, for the FGC forum to work as a culturally responsive, empowering and whānau inclusive process for Māori participants, it must be delivered by, or at the very least reflect the needs and cultural contexts of the communities within which it is practiced. For any intervention to be effective for whānau (i.e. the FGC), Māori need to be involved in its development and delivery: from identification of community needs, to designing and directly delivering those programmes themselves. They also need to be involved at all stages of programme development, change and local evaluation of these. We believe a good place to begin the process of making the forum meaningful would be a conscious effort by leaders in the youth justice and child protection sectors to seriously consider the issues raised by Māori participants in Moyle’s recent (2013, 2014) research and reported in this presentation.

References

Cavello, L (1992) The Mythologies of Law: A Postmodern Assessment. Master's thesis, York University, Ontario.

Doolan, M (2005) Restorative Practices and Family Empowerment: Both/And or Either/Or? Retrieved 8 August from http://www.americanhumane.org/site/DocServer/au13.

Love, C (2002) Maori Perspectives on Collaboration and Colonisation in Contemporary Aotearoa/New Zealand Child and Family Welfare Policies and Practices, paper presented at the Policy Partnerships Conference, Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo, June.

Moyle, P (2013) From Family Group Conferencing to Whanau Ora: Maori Social Workers Talk about their Experiences. Master's Thesis, Massey University, Palmerston North.

Moyle, P (2014) Maori Social Workers Experiences of Care and Protection: A Selection of Findings, Te Komako: Social Work Review, 26(1): 55-64.

Pakura, S (2005) The Family Group Conference 14-Year Journey: Celebrating Successes, Learning from Lessons, Embracing the Challenges.  Paper presented at the American Humane Association's Family Group Decision Making conference, Harrisburg, Pennslyvania, 6-9 June.

Tauri, J (1998) Family Group Conferences: A Case Study in the Indigenisation of New Zealand's Justice System, Current Issues in Criminal Justice, 10(2): 168-182.

Maori Engagement with New Zealand's Child Care and Protection Industry

The following figures relate to recent Maori engagement with New Zealand's care and protection/youth 'justice' systems.  The figures were provided by Poara Moyle, which graciously agreed to have them published on this blog.  If you are interested in an Indigenous-centred, critical perspective on the care and protection industry's impact on Maori, or wish to engage with material aimed at developing empowering social work practice, visit Paora's webpage at https://www.paoramoyle.com/.

I am providing this information here to a) enhance understanding of Maori experience of the industry, and b) as a source for researchers and students interested in this area of sociological/criminological/social work scholarship:

In the 2012 ‐ 2013 year, 80 Maori newborns were removed from their mother within the first 30 days of their birth. More than half of the total newborn uplifts. (Bernadette McKenzie, Deputy Chief Executive, Child Youth and Family, personal communication, June, 6, 2014).

Since then, uplifted Maori newborns have increased to 64% of the total (I would argue give or take the professional defining/recording the ethnicity, it could be as high as 2/3s of the total uplifts).

A snapshot view of the Ministry of Social Development (MSD)/Child Youth and Family (CYF)/Ministry of Vulnerable Children (MVC) statistics for the years 2006 – 2017 shows the most increasing client group is the under 5s (including unborn). From 2006 - 2011 under 5s increased whilst the 6-9, 10-13, 16-17 age groups, decreased.

For the same period there was a steady increase for Maori having had a new care and protection Family Group Conference (FGC), whilst the Pakeha (European) client group decreased. From 2011-2017 the older age groups have remained fairly static.

‘New’ FGCs are held for new care and protection concerns. During the period 2006 - 2011 there was a 27% increase (4447 to 5667) in 'new' FGCs. The biggest increase were for the under fives 44% of the total. FGCs for Māori increased to 53% of the total.

From the CYF figures for the period 2010 to 2017 the overall number of Maori children and young people uplifted into state care increased, whilst Pakeha numbers decreased. In 2017 Maori make up 62% of the total (3439 of 5,603). The fastest growing client group over this time being the under 5’s.

Also in 2017, the number of distinct children and young people in the custody of the Chief Executive increased by 8% from the previous year (from 5,204 to 5,603).

Maori make up 62% of the total (3439 of 5,603) and this had increased 6% from the previous year.

There was also an 8% increase in the number of out-of-home placements (from 4,260 to 4,609). The most increasing client group of out-of-home placements being the under 5s. With the most increasing ethnicity of out-of-home placements being Māori at 61%, whilst Pakeha are decreasing.

This shows overwhelmingly that Maori are being targeted, particularly the under 5s, which fits with what young wahine Maori and Kaimahi in Refuge, MVC and Family Court are reporting their experiences to be, especially around the FGC being used to justify/rubber stamp state enforcement. stamp state enforcement. 

Beware Restorative Justice Advocates Bearing Gifts: A Commentary on the Glorification of Family Group Conferencing

The following is a commentary on the glorification of the family group conference (FGC) forum, motivated by a reading of Carolyn Henwood and Stephen Stratford's book A Gift to the World: The Youth Justice Family Group Conference, published by The Henwood Trust (2014).

Introduction

Thus planetarised, or globalised in a strictly geographical sense, by this uprooting at the same time as they are de-particularised by the effect of false rupture effected by conceptualisation, these commonplaced of the great new global vulgate that endless media repetition progressively transforms into universal common sense manage in the end to make one forget that they have their roots in the complex and controversial realities of a particular historical society, now tacitly constituted as model for every other and as a yardstick for all things.

                                                                                Bourdieu and Wacqaunt (1999: 42).

The quote from Bourdieu and Wacquant came to me part way through my first reading of Carolyn Henwood and Stephen Stratford’s offering A Gift to the World: The Youth Justice Family Group Conference.  The sentiments expressed in the quote neatly summarise their stance on the purpose of the FGC forum, and the place they believe it has in New Zealand’s youth justice system  In short, Henwood and Stratford’s text represents a recent edition to the growing lexicon that is providing the ideological fuel that has been driving the globalisation of the FGC forum since the mid-1990s (see Richards, 2007; Tauri, 2014).  I will return to the links between the quote and the book under review later, but first I wish to provide a brief overview of the focus and aims of the book.

The Aims of ‘A Gift to the World’

Early on, the authors of A Gift to the World make it clear that the book is intended as a celebration of the FGC forum, a justice process they believe “can be a life-changing process for all involved and for New Zealand” (Henwood and Stratford, 2014: vii). The aims of Henwood and Stratford’s book are fairly straightforward: a) to provide a detailed description of how FGC’s ‘work’ (as in the process and the impact of the forums); b) give voice to the experiences of youth, their family members and professionals involved in the process, and c) challenge a number of ‘myths’ associated with the forum, including that it is “an indigenous, Maori response to offending”, that “ it is a soft [sentencing] option”, and that it “doesn’t work” to reduce crime (ibid: 85).

To achieve these aims the author’s utilise a combination of methods including analysis of FGC plans, and interviews with participants and justice practitioners.  This material was in turn used to construct seven case studies that are employed to inform the reader of the types of offences, offenders, victims and families an FGC forum can deal with, and the sorts of ‘outcomes’ the process leads to.  While the case studies appear to have been purposely selected to provide positive stories about FGC practice, nevertheless they represent one of its key strengths by providing critics and advocates alike with detailed descriptions of the FGC process that has till now been largely absent from the literature. 

I wish now to return briefly to the quote from Bourdieu and Wacquant that introduced this piece, before I launch into the substantive commentary:  This quote came to mind because the Henwood and Stratford present the FGC forum as a gift not just for New Zealander's, but to the world.  It is true the forum has been uprooted and planitarised; transferred across and into numerous jurisdictions over the past two decades.  It has been globalised to such an extent that advocates readily describe it as one of the most innovative and popular justice products developed during the 20^th century (Maxwell, 2008).  Policy makers and advocates alike wax lyrical about the crime reduction potentialities of the forum, and the ability of practitioners to create communities of concern that can work together to find meaningful ways of restoring social harmony, whilst holding youth offenders accountable for their behaviour (see Cary, 2000; Consedine, 1995; Zehr, 2002). 

However, in some instances advocates, including Henwood and Stratford, make such claims largely in the absence of empirical evidence derived from critical engagement with population groups most often impacted by the practice of the forum; including Maori in New Zealand, and Indigenous peoples residing in settler-colonial jurisdictions into which it has been transferred (Tauri, 2014).  In doing so, advocates create supposed ‘common sense’ understandings of the purpose and impact of the forum that “make one forget that they have their roots in the complex and controversial realities of a particular historical society” (Bourdieu and Wacquant, 1999; 42).  What is often written out of the history of the FGC forum and similar interventions (such as Sentencing Circles), is the fact that it was introduced at a time when it was commonplace for policy workers in settler-colonial jurisdictions to respond to Indigenous justice ‘issues’ by creating and/or importing indigenised justice forums that utilised ‘acceptable’ (meaning civilised) elements of Indigenous cultural practice.  Often shaded from view, is the part played by interventions like the FGC in the settler-colonial states multi-pronged strategy for blocking Indigenous attempts to attain a measure of jurisdictional autonomy (Lee, 1997; Tauri, 2004; Victor, 2007). 

FGC Advocacy and the Silencing of  the Critical Indigenous Perspective

Like many academics, upon receiving a new book or journal article that falls within my research interests primary areas of research - driven as much by a concern that the material reflect the Indigenous experience as to replenish my  ego - I turn to the bibliography to see if the authors have engaged meaningfully with the work of critical scholars.  For example, when reading a text that claims to offer an in-depth discussion of myths associated with the FGC, one can reasonably expect to find that the authors have engaged with the work of Shad Maruna, Chris Cunneen, Kelly Richards, to mention but a few.  Similarly, it is eminently reasonable to expect that when an author claims that their book or article on the FGC forum engages with Maori/Indigenous ‘issues’, to find the work of Wenona Victor, Harry Blagg, Chris Cunneen, Gloria Lee and myself, given a dismissive mention in a footnote at the very least.  Tellingly, none of the critical Indigenous material appears to have been on the reading list of the authors when they were contemplating writing ‘A Gift to the World’. 

A ‘Gift to the World’ suffers from one of the common weaknesses the FGC-related advocacy literature; namely that research and critical perspectives of Indigenous scholars, practitioners and community members is largely missing.  Instead, ‘expert’ commentary on issues of importance to Indigenous peoples is almost entirely based on the views and experiences of middle class justice professionals,  While members of this group have a right to be heard, one can also reasonably argue that they have a significant stake in presenting the forum in the best possible light. 

What is largely missing ‘A Gift to the World’ is the critical lived experiences of Maori/Pacifica professionals or participants whose experience of the forum have been less than positive, or that expose the mythology that sits behind many of the ‘truth claims’ of FGC advocates, such as the belief in the ability of the forum to accommodate any and all ‘difference’, be it based on class, gender, sexuality of ethnicity (more on this issue below).  As indicated above, it is no longer possible to contend that materials that report the negative experiences of Maori and Pacifica participants, or Indigenous peoples in settler-colonial jurisdictions that have imported the forum, are rare or difficult to source.  The work of Love (2002), Moyle (2013) and my own work (Tauri, 1998; 1999; 2004; 2014) on the New Zealand context, and Rudin, Lee, Victor, Cunneen and others I mention above who report on the experiences of Indigenous peoples in other jurisdictions, leaves little room for advocates to justify ignoring these perspectives. 

In failing to engage with the critical research and literature, the authors create an interesting contradiction, in that they end up lending weight to some of the myths they seek to discredit.  For example, on page 89 they attempt to debunk the myth that “the family group conference is an indigenous, Maori response to offending”.  Given that a lot of my own work in the FGC forum focuses on this issue, it was heartening to see that Henwood and Stratford were willing to tackle it head on.  Unfortunately their approach to this issue reinforces key issues identified earlier, including failing to engage meaningfully with the extant, critical literature, and an over-reliance on the views of justice practitioners.  Furthermore, their argument that while the FGC is not a Maori justice form, it nevertheless “promote[s] participation… by a young Maori who has offended” by offering Maori participants “the opportunity to have the conference in chosen familiar surroundings, including on marae (traditional meeting area) (Ibid: 89) is severely compromised by a lack of engagement with research that contradicts this position. 

A cursory glance at the critical literature and government sponsored reviews of the process demonstrates that Maori whanau and communities are rarely ‘offered’ the gift of holding FGC’s in “familiar surroundings” (see for example, Morris and Maxwell, 1993; Maxwell, Robertson, Kingi, Morris and Cunningham, 2004; and Tauri’s 2011 analysis of their research in demonstrating the failure of the implementation of the FGC to enhance Maori ability to ‘practice justice’).  The failure to critically engage with the relevant research underlines the importance of distinguishing between what advocates and policy makers claim to be the aims of particular interventions, and the actual outcomes that result from practice.  In this instance, practice does not match the rhetoric that the FGC is a forum that offers Maori the opportunity to ‘lead’ the justice systems response to  the offending of their own (Tauri, 2014). 

Another key myth of the FGC supported by the authors of ‘A Gift to the World’, is that the forum responds easily to the cultural values and practices of diverse ethnic groups.  On pages 15-20 the authors replicate the oft-told myth of the forums ability to accommodate any and all ‘cultures’.  In comparison, a number of Indigenous and critical non-Indigenous scholars argue that the forum is more accurately described as a Eurocentric, standardised youth justice process that utilises fragments of Indigenous cultural practice others, but does little to empower us (see Blagg, 1997, 1998; Cunneen, 1997, 2002; Lee, 1997; Moyle, 2013; Tauri, (1998; 1999; 2004; 2014) and Victor, 2007).  I employ the term ‘standardised’ to describe the FGC forum with intent, for it is one of the great self-deceptions of justice practitioners and policy makers in settler-colonial jurisdictions is that justice forums derived from western criminal justice and criminological paradigms, can work for everyone or anyone regardless of ‘race’, differences in social or historical context (Tauri, 2009). 

To add gravitas to their portrayal of the cultural flexibility of the forum, Henwood and Stratford (2014: 20) cite Judge Fred McElrea who claims that “[t]he family group conference model is receptive to different cultural influences and can accommodate indigenous, European, and immigrant cultures with little  difficulty”.  Unfortunately for Henwood, Stratford and Judge McElrea, critical literature that exposes the diversity of Maori experiences (and of Indigenous peoples in other settler-colonial jurisdictions), says otherwise.  For example, what are we to make of the Judge’s comment in light of the experiences of Maori social work practitioners and whanau participants surveyed by Paora Moyle (2014; forthcoming) for her Masters and Doctoral research, who state that:

The family group conference is about as restorative as it is culturally sensitive... in the same way Pākehā [European] social workers believe they are competent enough to work with our people... Pākehā think they’re the natural ordinary community against which all other ethnicities are measured (participant 19).

In the FGC we were talking about how ‘Pākeha’ the caregiver training was when most kids in care are Māori.  The social worker said, “our training teaches all prospective parents how to be culturally sensitive... culture is important to us (to child protection) but the health and wellbeing of a child must come first.”  Like, being Māori is secondary, an add-on, or a choice!

And finally participant 21, a kaumatua (respected elder) who pointedly stated that:

CYF (Child Youth & Family) said I couldn’t attend the FGC because I wasn’t whānau [family].  But the whānau wanted a tikanga [philosophy] process and I was the kaumatua. Then the next week CYFs ring and ask me to attend a different FGC... talk about ‘dial a kaumatua.’

The material drawn from Moyle’s research demonstrates that the FGC forum does not always meet our specific cultural and social needs.  In particular, it highlights that in some instances justice officials actively work against whanau in ways that contradict claims that the forum responds to the needs of all ethnic groups with ‘little difficulty’. 

A Gift to the World?

If, as Henwood and Stratford infer in the title of their book, the FGC forum is New Zealand's ‘gift to the world’, then it would be a good idea to find out how it is being experienced ‘out there’.  And, being a critical Indigenous scholar and given  the propensity for RJ advocates to over egg the ‘Maoriness’ of the forum (see Richards, 2007), by ‘the world’ I am referring to indigenous individuals, communities and organisations residing in settler-colonial jurisdictions, and not members of the judiciary or government agencies, or FGC/RJ advocates motivated at least in part to ensure the forum is marketed as positively as possible (Tauri, 2014). 

For example, engaging with the critical work of the Stolo First Nation criminologist Dr Wenona Victor (2007) or the Cree scholar Gloria Lee (1999), reveals a world in which the cross-jurisdictional transfer of the forum is experienced less as a gift, and more as the imposition of a Eurocentric, standardised crime control process that impedes the development of Indigenous-led initiatives (Tauri, 2011).  Furthermore, engaging with the work of Kelly Richards (2007) reveals that the transfer of the FGC forum from New Zealand and Australia out to ‘the world’, was made possible in large part because policy makers and RJ advocates purposely exaggerated the Maori/Indigenous basis to the forum, especially to jurisdictions such as as the U.S and Canada that were also experiencing high level of Indigenous over-representation in the criminal justice system (see also Tauri, 2005; 2014). 

If the authors  of ‘A Gift to the World’ took time to engage with the critical research of Indigenous and our critical, non-Indigenous collaborators, they would find a world in which the FGC is a gift of the Trojan Horse variety.  They would find a world where once you dig through the thick veil of rhetoric about the cultural appropriateness of forums like the FGC, there lies a different reality.  They will find a situation where the forum is being experienced by some participants as an orientalised, state-dominated processes that has been imposed on Indigenous peoples, and impedes their attempts to develop responses to social harm based on their own cultural contexts (Tauri, 2004, Victor, 2007). 

Overall, the lack of attention given by the authors’ of ‘A Gift to the World’ to the range of experiences of Indigenous peoples of the FGC forum, detracts from the powerful stories revealed through the case studies.  In particular, the lack of attention to the negative impact the cross-jurisdictional transfer of the FGC has had on Indigenous people around the world, provokes me to conclude this commentary by paraphrasing a well known Indigenous dictum that underlines why Indigenous peoples should be wary of works that glorify the FGC forum: ‘Indigenous peoples everywhere, beware RJ advocates bearing gifts’. 

References

Blagg, H (1997) A Just Measure of Shame?  Aboriginal Youth and Conferencing in Australia, British Journal of Criminology, 37(4): 481-501.

Blagg, H (1998) Restorative Visions and Restorative Justice Practices: Conferencing, Ceremony and Reconciliation in Australia, Current Issues in Criminal Justice, 10(1): 5-14.

Bourdieu, P and Wacquant, L (1999) On the Cunning of Imperialist Reason, Theory, Culture and Society, 16(1): 41-58. 

Cary, M (2000) Restorative Justice – A New Approach with Historical Roots: Corrections Retrospective 1959-1999.  St Paul: Minnesota Department of Corrections. 

Consedine, J (1995) Restorative Justice: Healing the Effects of Crime.  Wellington: Ploughshare Publishing.

Cunneen, C (1997) Community Conferencing and the Fiction of Indigenous Control.  The Australian New Zealand Journal of Criminology, 30: 292-311.

Cunneen, C (2002) Restorative Justice and the Politics of Decolonisation, in E. Weitekamp and H. Kerner (Eds.), Restorative Justice: Theoretical Foundations.  Devon: Willan Publishing: 32-49.

Henwood, C and Stratford, S (2014) A Gift to the World: New Zealand’s Family Group Conference.  Wellington: Henwood Trust.

Lee, G (1997) The Newest Old Gem: Family Group Conferencing, Justice as Healing, 2(2): 1-3.

Love, C (2002) Maori Perspectives on Collaboration and Colonisation in Contemporary Aotearoa/New Zealand Child and Family Welfare Policies and Practices, paper presented at the Policy and Partnerships Conference, Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo.

Maxwell, G. (2008) Crossing Cultural Boundaries: Implementing Restorative Justice in International and Indigenous Contexts, Sociology of Crime, Law and Deviance, 11: 81-95.

Maxwell, G, Robertson, J, Kingi, V, Morris, A and Cunningham, C (2004) Achieving Effective Outcomes in Youth Justice.  Wellington: Ministry of Social Development. 

Morris, A. and Maxwell, G. (1993) Juvenile Justice in New Zealand: A New Paradigm, Australian and New Zealand Journal of Criminology, 26(1): 72-90. 

Moyle, P (2013) From Family Group Conferencing to Whanau Ora: Maori Social Workers Talk about their Experiences, unpublished Masters thesis, Massey University.  

Moyle, P and Tauri, J (2015) Indigenous Peoples and the Mystifications of the Restorative Justice Movement, unpublished paper. 

Richards, K (2007) ‘Rewriting History’: Towards a Genealogy of ‘restorative justice’, unpublished PhD thesis. Penrith: University of Western Sydney.

Rudin, J (2003) Pushing Back – A Response to the Drive for the Standardisation of Restorative Justice Programmes in Canada, paper presented to The 6^th International Conference on Restorative Justice, Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, 2 October. 

Tauri, J (1998) Family Group Conferencing: A Case-Study of the Indigenisation of New Zealand’s Justice System, Current Issues in Criminal Justice, 10(2): 168-182.

Tauri, J (1999) Explaining Recent Innovations in New Zealand’s Criminal Justice System: Empowering Maori or Biculturalising the State, Australian New Zealand Journal of Criminology, 32(2): 153-167.

Tauri, J (2004) Conferencing, Indigenisation and Orientalism: A Critical Commentary on Recent State Responses to Indigenous Offending (key note address), paper presented at Qwi: Qwelstom Gathering: ‘Bringing Justice Back to the People”, Mission, B.C, 22-24 March.

Tauri J (2009) An Indigenous Commentary on the Standardisation of Restorative Justice, Indigenous Policy Journal, 20(3), online.

Tauri, J (2011) Indigenous Perspectives (reconfigured chapter), in R. Walters and T. Bradley (Eds.), Introduction to Criminological Thought (2^nd ed.).  Auckland: Pearson Longman: 187-210.

Tauri, J (2014) Criminal Justice: A Colonial Project in Settler-Colonialism?  African Journal of Criminology and Justice Studies, 8(1): 20-37.  

Victor, W (2007) Indigenous Justice: Clearing Space and Place for Indigenous Epistemologies, research paper for the National Centre for Indigenous peoples Governance. 

Zehr, H (2002) The Little Book of Restorative Justice.  Scottsdale (PA): Good Books. 

A Critical Response to Advocates of Restorative Justice and Family Group Conferencing

The following blog seeks to answer some of the comments made in recent time by advocates for restorative justice, and in particular of the Family Group Conferencing (FGC) forum in response to the Indigenous critique.

Background

From its inception via the Child, Young Persons and their Families Act of 1989, until the late 1990s, advocates of FGC and the wider RJ context, and the policy sector responsible for its implementation, dominated commentary on the forum (Tauri, 1999).  The commentary was universally positive, but theoretically 'light', and lacking in data derived from independent research (as opposed to that supported by government agencies).  There was little in the way of critical commentary from within government circles, and dissenting voices from without were more often than not ignored, and sometimes vilified.  In the case of the author, the latter came in the form of a phone call one day in late 1999 from a senior Judge and noted advocate of FGC who bleated that he had heard I had criticised FGC's during a presentation at a conference in Canberra earlier that year and asked "how could you say such things".  Apart from the fact that what he had been told 2nd hand I had said being wrong, I also stated that the FGC was not a sacred cow and I was entitled to make critical comments if I wish.

Except I was wrong: the FGC had by then become a sacred cow.  It had also become a cash cow for some criminologists, policy entrepreneurs and ex-policemen from New Zealand and Australia in the decade since its inception.  By the early 2000's FGC of some form or other had 'travelled' from New Zealand to Australia, from Australia and New Zealand to North America, and from New Zealand to Germany and from there to other Western European jurisdictions.  The FGC had gone global, and the forum, at the time and ever since New Zealand's only original crime control idea/policy, had made the country the darling of the then developing restorative justice industry.

Now, since the late 1990s I and a whole host of other critical criminologists have critiqued the FGC from various angles, including Kathy Daly, Harry Blagg, Chris Cunneen and Kelly Richards on the Australian perspective, Wenona Victor, Jonathan Rudin and Gloria Lee on the Canadian context, and myself and Cath Love on the New Zealand context.  Within this growing body of critical literature has been identified a number of issues with the FGC forum, far too many to discuss in detail here.  But one that is key to our understanding the importance of the FGC to the ever-expanding globalised RJ industry, is the constant exaggeration of its Indigenous (read Maori) foundations; what Daly (2002) would probably (and accurately) call one of the key Origin Myths of restorative justice.  

In short, the origin myth goes something like this: in the mid-1980s a Maori-led committee produced a critical review of social policy/care and protection practices as they impacted Maori (known as 'Daybreak' - see Ministerial Advisory Committee, 1988); that this report recommended that a Maori-centred justice process be developed, that the report and this recommendation lay the foundation for the FGC, and finally, that because of all this, the FGC forum was 'Maori inspired'; a 'Maori process', and/or 'rich with Maori philosophy and justice practice', etc.  Certainly, the forum developed out of Maori concerns for government responses to youth justice (amongst a number of issues), but as one of the key architects of the 1989 legislation, Doolan (2005: 1) “those of us who were involved in the policy development process leading up to the new law had never heard of restorative justice”, and nor was a major concern the oft-made and exaggerated claim that they were motivated by wanting to 'empower Maori to deal with their own youth offenders'.  Instead, their focus was on producing a state-centred forum based on what was then becoming the fashionable ideological bases to western youth justice policy, namely the responsibilisation of youth offenders and their families (see Richards, 2007 for a full analysis of the exaggerated way in which Maori input has been constructed by FGC advocates). 

This all sound lovely; the state producing a forum based on Maori justice principles, to empower us, etc, etc; except it is all exaggerated bull-dust.  Yes, when you look closely the forum includes some 'Indigenous' elements, and some RJ one's, but these were after-the-fact 'discoveries' manufactured by New Zealand and Australian criminologists who, in my opinion, simply cherry picked features of the FGC process that matched with so-called Indigenous and RJ processes, thereby creating the illusion of its 'Maoriness': in other words, they created a fiction which has since evolved into a myth: a myth many advocates of RJ and FGC have used since to facilitate the successful transfer of the forum across various jurisdictions. Nothing wrong with that per se, except those who are purposely doing this are doing so on the back of incomplete information (constructed in the form of the 'myth'); they are misrepresenting the forum as Indigenous, when it is not, and some are making quite a nice living from doing so.  And that, I believe, is unethical.  

Critiquing the Advocates

I want to focus for the remainder of this blog on responding to one particular RJ advocates critique of Indigenous criticisms of the FGC forum; namely comments made by Gabrielle Maxwell in a 2008 publication, in which she stated that:

In New Zealand there has been criticism that family group conferences have not been managed in ways that conform with traditional practice of Maori or those from other cultural backgrounds.  It has been suggested that the high proportion of Maori staff managing the process and the inclusion of Maori greetings and blessing is little more than tokenism and can rarely be described as a truly Maori process.  This is despite the undisputed origins of many aspects of the conference process in traditional Maori procedures (Consedine, 1995).  On the other hand, on occasion, the management of the conference process is sometimes passed over to a Maori social service group (Maxwell, 2008: 87).

These sentiments had previously been expressed by Gabrielle's one time collaborator, Alison Morris just a few short years before when she argued that in 'critiquing FGC's I failed to acknowledge the high numbers Maori working in New Zealand's Child Care and Protection service'.

Within Maxwell and Morris' comments we can identify many of the issues Maori and other critical Indigenous/non-Indigenous commentators have with much of the Academy’s writing on the FGC forum, in particular the manipulation of the available record to establish and sustain the origin myths of the FGC:

First: the most obvious issue is the claim that the FGC’s Maori foundations are ‘undisputable’.  The previous discussion, especially the research of Richards (2007) exposes the exaggerated nature of this claim.  In reiterating this origin myth and presenting it as ‘undisputable’, Maxwell and others ignore the significant amount of literature exposing this myth published since Consedine’s 1995 book.  Maxwell’s approach to espousing the origin myth of FGC highlights one of the fundamental criticisms Indigenous scholars have made about some members of the restorative justice Industry, namely the lack of engagement with the critical Indigenous/non-Indigenous literature (see Tauri, 2012; Tauri and Webb, 2011; more on this issue below).  

Second: Maxwell’s own published research on the FGC process (Morris and Maxwell, 1993; Maxwell et al, 2004) reported some Maori FGC participants being especially concerned with the tokenistic way in which ‘Maori culture’ was afforded space in the process, which more often than not comprised of state officials allowing elders to recite karakia (pray) at the beginning and end of the process: and that was pretty much it.  The 'reality' of the cultural context of the forum exposed by their own research, demonstrates that the actual practice of FGC is often far removed from ideological claims that the process offers meaningful opportunities for the empowerment of Maori, especially in 'leading' responses to the offending of their youth (See also Morris and Maxwell, 1998).  

Third: in the above quote Maxwell is replicating a fundamental weaknesses in the FGC/Maori justice scholarship, which is to ignore the lack of direct Maori input into the actual design of the Act and the FGC forum.  She also ignores the fact that officials involved in the developing the process - including the chief policy architect, Doolan - have since admitted that they were not focused on developing a ‘Maori justice process’, or indeed even a restorative justice one. 

What Maxwell and other restorative justice advocates are constantly doing is erroneously equating Maori requests for a ‘traditional forum’ (more especially in Moana Jackson’s 1988 report He Whaipaanga Hou than in Daybreak), with Maori justice philosophies being foundational to the formulation of the forum itself.  To do so is to ignore the reality of policy making in the New Zealand context, in particular the historical tendency for the criminal justice sector to ‘Indigenise’ Eurocentric crime control processes (see Jackson, 1995; Tauri, 1998; 2009; Tauri and Webb, 2011; Williams, 2001).  It also ignores that the supposed ‘Maori’ and restorative elements were identified long after the formulation and implementation of both the Act and the forum.  As Daly (2002: 63) effectively argues “the devising of a (white, bureaucratic) justice practice that is flexible and accommodating towards cultural differences does not mean that conferencing is an indigenous justice practice”.  Daly (2002: 4) then goes further, revealing that Maxwell herself is aware of this distinction when she includes the following quote from Maxwell and Morris’ original 1993 study:

A distinction must be drawn between a system, which attempts to re-establish the indigenous model of pre-European times, and a system of justice, which is culturally appropriate. The New Zealand system is an attempt to establish the latter, not to replicate the former. As such, it seeks to incorporate many of the features apparent in whanau [extended family] decision-making processes and seen in meetings on marae today, but it also contains elements quite alien to indigenous models.

Fourth: her claim that critics argue that “the high proportion of Maori staff managing the process… is little more than tokenism” does not feature in any of the literature published on the New Zealand context up till now, including the work of Jackson (1995); Love (2003) and Tauri (1998; 1999, 2005).  That significant numbers of Maori work in New Zealand’s child care and protection services (which involves FGC) is undisputed. However, it is simplistic to equate their employment in New Zealand's social services, with actual support for the process.  Indeed, Maori staff have in the past criticised the child care and protection processes utilised by the government agencies they work for, especially for the mono-cultural foundations of both policy and practice; most notably during Child Care and Protection Services staff consultation during the development of its differential service model, during Maxwell and colleagues own reviews of FGC published in 1993; 1998 and 2003, and most recently in Paora Moyles’ (2013) Master’s thesis on Maori social workers views and experiences of social work-related processes.  

Fifth: Maxwell’s attempt to counter criticisms of the tokenistic nature of the FGC process by noting that 'some FGC’s are handed to Maori and Pacifica service providers to facilitate', ignores the reality that her own research exposed - that very few FGCs actually take place in Maori homes or are run by non-Government entities (see Morris and Maxwell 1993; Maxwell et al, 2004).  

And

Lastly: as a critic of the way in which the FGC process continues to be marketed as a Maori process, and author of a number of journal articles and having read a considerable amount of the critical Indigenous/non-Indigenous literature, I found it interesting that when summarising the criticisms of authors like me, that none of the published, critical material was actually referenced, either in the body of the work, or in the bibliography.  Nor were the 'critics' actually named. The problem with this strategy, and probably the reason for it, is that it makes it difficult for readers to test the veracity of our claims.  And just as importantly, it makes it extremely difficult for readers to critically analyse Maxwell’s representation and analysis of our arguments - hence why some of our work is included in this blog.  I have come across this type of behaviour before: back in the early 2000's the justice system called for submissions for contract research on youth justice, to which the Crime Research Group at Victoria University of Wellington submitted a proposal.  In response to the submission, I and my colleagues challenged the lack of engagement in the groups proposal, with Maori and other Indigenous peoples criticisms of RJ in general and FGC in particular.  The response? One line, stating "... although Tauri has a different view".  So much for critical analysis of all available literature and once again, we see the critical Indigenous voice silenced. 

References

Daly, K (2002) Restorative Justice – The Real Story, Punishment and Society, 4(1): 55-79.

Doolan, M (2005) Restorative Practices and Family Empowerment: Both/And or Either/Or? Retrieved 8 August from http://www.americanhumane.org/site/DocServer/au13

Jackson, M (1988) Maori and the Criminal Justice System: He Whaipaanga Hou: A New Perspective.  Wellington: Department of Justice.

Jackson, M (1995) Cultural Justice: A Colonial Contradiction or a Rangatiratanga Reality?  In F. McElrea (ed.) Legal Pluralism and the Colonial Legacy.  Aldershot: Avebury: 31-45.

Love, C (2002) Maori Perspectives on Collaboration and Colonisation in Contemporary Aotearoa/New Zealand Child and Family Welfare Policies and Practices, paper presented at the Policy and Partnerships Conference, Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo. 

Maxwell, G (2008) Crossing Cultural Boundaries: Implementing Restorative Justice in International and Indigenous Contexts, Sociology of Crime, Law and Deviance, 11: 81-95.

Maxwell, G and Morris, A (1993) Family, Victims and Culture: Youth Justice in New Zealand.  Wellington: Social Policy Agency and the Institute of Criminology, Victoria University of Wellington.

Maxwell, G; Robertson, J; Kingi, V; Morris, A and Cunningham, C (2004) Achieving Effective Outcomes in Youth Justice.  Wellington: Ministry of Social Development.  

Ministerial Advisory Committee (1988) Puao-Te-Ata-Tu (Daybreak): The Report of the Ministerial Advisory Committee on A Maori Perspective for the Department of Social Welfare.  Wellington: Department of Social Welfare. 

Morris, A and Maxwell, G (1993) Juvenile Justice in New Zealand: A New Paradigm, Australian and New Zealand Journal of Criminology, 26(1): 72-90. 

Morris, A and Maxwell, G (1998) Restorative Justice in New Zealand: Family Group Conferences as a Case Study, Western Criminology Review, 1(1) retrieved from http://wer.sonoma.edu/v1n1/morris.html.

Moyle, P (2013) Fro Family Group Conferencing to Whaua Ora: Maori Social Workers talk about their Experiences, unpublished Master's thesis. Palmerston North: Massey University. 

Richards, K (2007) 'Rewriting History: Towards a Genealogy of 'Restorative Justice', unpublished PhD thesis. Penrith: University of Western Sydney. 

Tauri, J (1998) Family Group Conferencing: A Case-Study of the Indigenisation of New Zealand’s Justice System, Current Issues in Criminal Justice: 10(2): 168-182.

Tauri, J (1999) Explaining Recent Innovations in New Zealand’s Criminal Justice System: Empowering Maori or Biculturalising the State, Australian New Zealand Journal of Criminology, 32(2): 153-167. 

Tauri, J (2005) Indigenous Perspectives (chapter), in Walters, R and Bradley, T (eds), Introduction to Criminological Thought:  Auckland: Pearson Longman.

Tauri, J (2009) An Indigenous Commentary on the Standardisation of Restorative Justice, Indigenous Policy Journal, forthcoming.

Tauri, J (2011) Indigenous Perspectives (reconfigured chapter), in R. Walters and T. Bradley (eds), Introduction to Criminological Thought (2^nd ed.).  Auckland: Pearson Longman.

Tauri, J (2012) Indigenous Critique of Authoritarian Criminology, in K. Carrington; M. Ball; E. O’Brien and J. Tauri (eds.), Crime, Justice and Social Democracy: International Perspectives.  London: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 217-233.  

Tauri, J and Webb, R (2011) The Waitangi Tribunal and the Regulation of Maori Protest, New Zealand Sociology.

Williams, C (2001) The Too Hard Basket: Maori and Criminal Justice Since 1980.  Wellington: Institute of Policy Studies.  

Globalisation of Crime Control: Restorative Justice and Indigenous Justice

The following text is based on my notes for a presentation at the European Criminology conference, held in Budapest 3-6 September, 2013.

Introduction

Firstly, I want to articulate my 'position' to the audience, in others words expose both my purpose and my prejudice: this presentation is not the 'scientific observations of an Administrative Criminologist', but rather the subjective, grounded observations of an Indigenous activist.  My first, and primary goal is to articulate the Indigenous experience of the activities of criminologists, policy makers, and the restorative justice industry; to expose our concerns with how the activities of these crime control 'players' are exacerbating the neo-colonialism of First Nations through their ongoing use of Indigenous cultural artifacts in support of the inter-jurisdictional transfer of their crime control products.  My focus on expressing the Indigenous voice and experience enables me to meet the challenge laid down by First Nation leaders to further the cause of Indigenous justice, and also that of a small number of Western criminologists, such as O'Malley, Muncie and Stenson for criminology to move on from obsessive theorising about the shape and depth of contemporary globalising of crime control, and instead (my interpretation of what they were asking for) 'get real' and start analysing the micro-level impact all this 'globalising activity' is having 'on the ground' and with specific communities - in this case First Nations residing in Settler Societies like New Zealand and Canada.

I became interested in the globalisation of crime control as a criminological topic in the early 2000's, as a result of critical research into family group conferencing (see Tauri, 1998; 1999).  My interest was fuelled by a) engaging with the then growing criminological literature on the seeming increasing global transfer of western crime control policies, as a way of understanding how the FGC forum had moved from New Zealand to other jurisdictions; and b) because of a curious incident that occurred at an Indigenous justice conference I attended in British Columbia, Canada, in March of 2004.  The 'incident' went something like this:

Marketing restorative justice
At one point I was sitting working on my notes for my keynote address, when 2 delegates came to me and handed me a document, saying that I should read it and perhaps even comment on it later.  The document was a glossy, A4 marketing booklet for an RJ franchise (private) company.  The 'product' being spruiked was the company's franchised version of the FGC forum.  But that wasn't the really interesting part of the document (although finding out, at that time, that FGC had been privatised, certainly was revealing), it was the cover, and the language being used to 'sell' the product that really caught my attention. 

The script on the cover talked about 'real justice for Aboriginal peoples' and included a Koru motif, a well known 'Maori' art symbol, and the primary colours were Black, Red and White, the well known colours of the Maori sovereignty movement and its flag.  On opening the document I was confronted by  the usual over-the-top spiel associated with marketing materials, but in summary it went something along these lines:

'do you have an Aboriginal justice problem?  Are your Aboriginal peoples significantly overrepresented in the the criminal justice system?  If so, we have the deal for you, FGC's, a Maori (Aboriginal) justice initiative'... etc.etc

The Restorative Justice Industry and Indigenous Peoples
So, we might ask ourselves'what is wrong with this story?  What is concerning about this particular private company spruiking its wares on the international crime control market utilising the symbols, language and art of Maori? 

From an Indigenous perspective the answer is... everything, because a) the company in question certainly had not engaged with Maori to discuss using this material (evident from the script and work cited in the document), or sought permission to utilise it (more about that issue, and 'ownership' of culture in a postscript on responses to my presentation to be discussed in the next blog), and b) what was in fact being marketed, the FGC product, was not an Indigenous justice forum, at least not to the extent the company was claiming.  What the company was doing was simply repeating the oft-told, exaggerated claim of certain Australasian Administrative Criminologists, what I call the 'Origin Myth of the FGC', namely that the FGC forum is heavily imbued with 'Maori cultural practice', or is indeed an 'Indigenous forum'. 

Let us be clear - these claims are exaggerated: the forum is in fact much more heavily imbued with Western 'cultural artefacts', having its 'biological genesis' from the then growing mediation/western communitarian crime control response at the heart of its (heavily institutionalised) practice.  It is a Western policy/criminological invention on to which Administrative Criminologists and policy workers have grafted bits of Indigenous philosophy and practice.  At its philosophical heart the product is less about 'our ways of justice', and more a reflection of the then growing policy focus of responses to Western youth justice - the 'responsibilisation' of youth offenders and their families. 

From an Indigenous perspective, the activities of certain Western criminologists, policy-makers, and private franchise companies, spruiking certain RJ products, like FGC and Sentencing Circles - Western crime control models replete with bastardised Indigenous components - represents one of the biggest and most serious Criminological shams of the past 50 years (others include claims that 'more police = less crime', or that 'prisons are/can be therapeutic environments'). 

These are the products that are all too often valorised in the RJ literature; offered up as evidence to support the social movements claim to be significantly different to the brutalising, violent state justice system, and to its commitment to cultural sensitivity and empowerment of Minorities.  In fact the movement needs to wake up to itself and realise the following uneasy truths that all this activity:

a) is playing into the hands of government and policy makers - enabling them to offset the Indigenous challenge to the legitimacy of the formal justice system by providing it with artifacts that enable the appearance of cultural sensitivity and responsivity, in place of a genuine critique of the genocidal practices of state dominated crime control;

b) is more about fuelling the careers of criminologists and profits for private RJ companies, than empowering First Nations and furthering their desire for judicial autonomy.

Apart from a few well known exceptions (Kath Daly, Harry Blagg and Chris Cunneen, in the Australian context), the the acceptance of the Origin Myths associated with FGC and Sentencing Circles (re: their Indigenous foundations) within the RJ Academy, policy making, etc, is almost total, and goes largely unchallenged in the criminological and RJ lexicon.  This situation is a disgrace and there is no excuse for it, especially since publication of the Indigenous critique of all this activity has been steadily growing since the late 1990s, including my own work and that of Wenona Victor and Gloria Lee, to name a few.  And yet if you look at any bibliography on these artifacts published by the Academy you rarely find any reference to these publications, or meaningful engagement with the Indigenous issues and experiences they offer.  And what discussion there is, is more often than not highly superficial and dismissive.  For Indigenous criminologists like myself the situation is fuelling our discontent with the wider discipline of Criminology as it yet again demonstrates its willingness to support the neo-colonial subjugation of First Nations, just as it did during the colonialism, a fact eloquently exposed by Biko Agozino in his 2004 book Counter-colonial Criminology.

As an Indigenous person I find it easy to understand why Western criminologists, policy makers, private RJ companies and the like, are drawn to using Indigenous culture to sell their wares.  After all, one of the fundamental 'rules' of modern marketing is that 'sex sells', and let's face it, the Indigenous life-world is very sexy and very exotic.  This process - the Western criminological enterprise using, even stealing our 'stuff' - let us call it what it really is, namely the Eroticisation of Western crime control; a process driven by the desire to strengthen the marketing of Indigenised products on international markets.  But let's be just as clear about what it is not - the empowerment of the Indigenous Other.

And what may we ask, is the philosophical basis to all this marketing activity?  Well, one fundamental driver is the belief amongst many Western crime control 'experts' of the universal appeal of their wares; that Western crime control 'culture' can be universally applied anywhere in the world so long as you indigenise and eroticise for local consumption.

In 2001 Susanne Karstedt wrote that criminology was moving towards Indigenisation; rediscovering 'traditional' communitarian practices, but utilising Indigenous modes of crime control due to the Wests loss of their own practices over time; importing our practices from the Periphery to inform justice practice at the Centre.   Susanne was right to a point, because what was being imported were not Indigenous wares but Western responses, eroticised 'packages of political subjectivity' that met Western needs to 'get in touch with their historical, communitarian selves'.  In other words, you were all 'had' by a wonderfully effective marketing strategy.

The Impact of RJ Marketing on First Nations
The impact on First Nations of all this activity is very real, and very concerning.  Over the past 3 decades First Nations around the world have been resisting colonialism and neocolonialism by attempting to create for themselves some form of jurisdictional autonomy.  In response to these activities, and at the forefront of state resistance, have been globalised RJ products that are used as offerings of appeasement in place of real change to the racist, brutalising practices of crime control agencies.  Returning now to the story I used to open this presentation, the use of Indigenous cultural components to sell RJ products was a standard practice of companies operating in the North American jurisdiction.  And it had a very real impact as the Royal Mounties began utilising the forum as a standard response to youth offending.   

Dr Wenona Victor, a criminologist from the Stolo Nation of the Fraser Valley in British Columbia, underlines the successful transfer of FGC’s to Canada through the targeting of First Nations as recipients of this particular form of neo-colonial crime control product, and of the impact it had on First Nation moves to empower themselves.  By the late 1990s the Stolo First Nation of the Fraser Valley had begun the process of reinvigorating their own justice processes.  During that process they were informed that to 'receive' referrals of their youth (offenders) they would need to use FGC's.  Dr Victor describes receiving training on implementing FGC within Stolo territory, a process that had been sold to them by justice officials as “…developed by the Maori, the indigenous people of New Zealand”  She recounts the Stolo experience of receiving this training thus:

On the first day we all eagerly awaited her [the trainer’s] arrival.  We were somewhat surprised to see an extremely “White” looking lady enter the room; however, we have blonde blue-eyed, even red-headed Stolo among us, and so, too, we presumed, must the Maori.  However, it did not take us long to come to realise this lady was not Maori and was in fact Xwelitem [European].  Ah, the Maori had sent a Xwelitem; okay, we do that too, on occasion.  It is one of the many ironies of colonisation whereby Xwelitem often become our teachers….. [t]here are times when it is an Xwelitem who is recognised as the Stolo ‘expert’ and therefore, is the one talking even when there are Elders present.  But by the end of the three day training course I was convinced the Maori had lost their minds!  There was absolutely nothing Indigenous about this [FGC] model of justice whatsoever! (in Palys and Victor, 2007: 6)

Let me finish by reiterating what is going on here: the Stolo First Nation is attempting to empower themselves in part by resurrecting their own, tradition-based justice processes. While doing so government agents inform them that to be able to 'practice' Stolo justice with their own youth they would need to practice the 'justice' of another group of First Nations. Except that what they were expected to use was not Indigenous. The Academy, the RJ movement has a lot to answer for.