Community Research Webinar: Challenges and Opportunites for addressing inequities of the NZ justice system

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_bGsga9eaI&t=125

Reducing Our Prison Population - Past Failures and New Approaches

The following blog is based on notes from a presentation given as part of the University of Wollongong Tauranga campuses public lecture series for 2018:

Introduction

Earlier this year the Minister of Justice, Andrew Little announced the latest in what has been, since the late 1980s, a long line of reviews, tax payer-funded summits and inter-agency, ‘whole-of-government’ projects aimed at making the criminal justice system work more efficiently and effectively. 

Officially launched at a summit held in Porirua in October, the stated aim of the review is to reduce New Zealand’s prison muster by 30 percent over the next 15 years.  And a specific focus of the review is on the significant over-representation of Maori in the prison population specifically, and in the criminal justice system overall.

This presentation represents a modest offering in response to the current government’s attempt to make the justice system more effective, and just.

Before I move into the main part of my presentation, I want to say something about the focus and intent of my commentary:

There are two key themes that both run thru my presentation and join the elements together:

The policy sector/political class has had the lead for decades in developing and implementing responses to social harm.  It is fair to say that its impact has been mixed, with as many failures as successes, although given the lack of independent scrutiny of its activities, this is a subjective proposition I make, rather than an empirical one.  However, regardless of its many failures, it is a necessary part of any attempt we make to reduce the prison population, and so reform of the policy sector and the political context of crime control policy development is an absolute must if we are to meet the 30% reduction target set by Minister Little.

Any substantive move to reduce the prison population requires a significant increase in the role of communities, including community-based service providers, in the development and delivery of policies and interventions.  The days of the wholesale importation of policies and interventions from other high crime jurisdictions need to be a thing of the past.

PART I

Overview of Past Attempts to Review Criminal Justice

By way of background and to add context to my commentary, it is based on 10 years working in the policy sector, the majority spent analysing crime control policy), and some 15 years carrying out research on crime control in settler-colonial jurisdictions.

I will use examples and case studies gleamed from my policy and research experience to a) highlight reasons why we have failed to arrest the rate of imprisonment, to reduce the harm that occurs in our communities, and to eradicate bias and racism within the criminal justice system, and b) evidence my key argument for a significant overhaul of the policy industry and the political classes’ influence on crime control policy, without which any significant reduction in crime, social harm and use of imprisonment is impossible.

Failures and Examples

When I arrived at Corrections in early 2001, the agency was in the process of implementing the Integrated Offender Management (IOM) initiative.  Imported more or less wholesale 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.

The importation of IOM provides a case study that encapsulates all that is wrong with the crime control policy sector in New Zealand:

It was evident that senior management was hell-bent in introducing the process, regardless of criticism or dissent: For that reason ‘consultation’ with internal and external stakeholders was superficial, a tick-the-box exercise. I personally attended 3 so-called consultations, and read the reports written thereafter, in each one any criticism or difficult question had been either not included, or re-worded to enable the department of answer from a pre-conceived suite of answers.

The importation exercise involved liberal use of what is most accurately called the orientalisation of the social context with regards the potential impact of the process on Maori.  Orientalisation here refers to the tendency of the policy sector to justify importing policies and interventions on the basis that they 'work for African Americans' so will work for other people of colours, like Maori. 

The hegemony of policy-based evidence: a few years after the implementation of IOM and its suite of criminogenic interventions, time came for the analysis and release of the first tranche of outcome-based data, meaning the impact of the programmes on recidivism.  The results were, to say the least, not what the department had predicted.  For some interventions – such as Straight Thinking - Maori who did not attend had lower recidivism rates than those that did.  The ‘report’ was suddenly taken from the primary author to be ‘edited’, due to the poor results of the programmes.

The implementation  of IOM by Corrections highlights a number of failings across the criminal justice sector that explains its poor record of impacting crime rates, a number of which I will return to throughout this presentation namely that:

The propensity for the sector to rely on importing crime control policies and interventions from other high crime, western jurisdictions.

Retrofitting crime control policies and processes to the New Zealand context without the requisite engagement and research work required to ensure effectiveness and ‘fit’.

An aversion by the major criminal justice agencies to admit mistakes, release information that does not portray them in a good light.

An unwillingness to trust the ‘community’ here to assist in development effective responses to social harm.

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 from the early 2000s onwards.  

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, like evidence that contradicts a Cabinet Minister's pet project, or that highlights the negative impact of government’s social and economic policy.

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 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. 

To their credit Ministry of Justice officials provided their Minister with a thorough briefing, one that highlighted the lack of evidence that the intervention would in fact, reduce youth offending.  The Minister moved forward with the policy, simply noting that he had “received, but not read the briefing”.  Let me repeat that, he had “received but not read” a briefing.  I will come back to this ‘attitude’ soon.

 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.  So in this example, this case study, we see the impact on crime control policy, of ideology, of political ideology, of the need to secure votes, resulting in tax payer’s money being squandered on a failed intervention and political decisions being made in the face of overwhelming evidence that contradicts the political and ideological position.  But it is not only the political class that is guilty of what is best described as Policy-based Evidence, as opposed to evidence-based policy, which can be defined as:

Crime control policy based on the ideological and theoretical bias of the Policy Industry and politicians.

PART II

Strategies for Reducing the Prison Population

In this last section I will set out a number of strategies that will enable Minister Little and his officials to meet their stated target of a 30% reduction in the prison muster.  Because of time constraints they are offered in a very simplistic, largely unevidenced manner; that I admit. They are designed to become part of the general discussion occurring right now,

Depoliticise Crime Control Policy

The first strategy I advocate appears on paper the easiest, but in fact is probably the most difficult to implement: we need to put a stop to the impact of political ideology on our response to social harm. We need to depoliticise crime control policy in much the same way Finland has done.  We need a cross-party agreement to stop the juvenile nonsense we suffer every three years where politicians try to out macho each other to see who can be the 'toughest on crime', resulting in increases in police (with the usual unrealised promises of a reduction in crime), more prison beds, longer sentences, and so forth.  This has been the standard political response to social harm for the best part of three decades: has it made us safer (or, more accurately, to 'feel' safer)?  The answer is no.  The way forward is to develop a policy process based on the needs of community, and one less concerned with the needs of politicians. 

Get Over the Policy Cringe and Empower the Community

Those who work with victims and offenders invariable know what is needed to respond meaningfully to the social issues arising from social harm.  We need the policy sector to work with them more directly (and respectfully) as partners to develop effective, socially grounded solutions.  In order to do so we need to move away from the policy cringe that too often afflicts the Policy Industry in Wellington.  Much like cultural cringe, the policy cringe is based on the erroneous belief that 'things are done better elsewhere', and that successful responses to social harm must be imported from other jurisdictions, usually from jurisdictions with high crime rates!  Go figure.  So we import crime control policies from other jurisdictions, invariable do little to alter them for the New Zealand context, and then place them over the top of community-centred practise... and watch them crash and burn.  the classic example of this process was the importation to New Zealand in the mid-2000s of Multi-Systemic Therapy from the U.S, as` part of the new youth residential programme that was trialed in Hamilton.  Officials from a number of agencies, including Te Puni Kokiri stated serious concerns at the suitability of the programme for Maori youth; concerns that were ignored.  The result?  The programme, and MST especially, was a failure, while at the same time a number of existing home-grown wrap-around, social support programmes for Maori youth, were ignored. 

Treatment and Social Support, not Criminalisation and Imprisonment

There is a simple response that will reduce the prison population quickly and enable Minister Little to meet his 30% objective, stop sending people to prison! 

Stop arresting people, charging them, sending them to court, sentencing them to imprisonment for victimless crimes, like some drug offences.

Stop sending people to prison who are addicted or mentally unwell – increase significantly our reliance and focus on therapeutic jurisprudence.

And here is a suggestion that will likely anger some, perhaps some of you here – recognise the reality we are dealing with regarding our prison muster – a significant number of them are addicted, are mentally unwell, and many have long histories of trauma – of domestic violence, or sexual victimisation.  

To stop them from victimising others, then we need to deal with their trauma, and if you want evidence of the sorts of victimisation and trauma that some of our past and present prison muster are dealing with, then I recommend you read Dr Liz Stanley’s 2016 publication The Road to Hell: State Violence Against Children in Postwar New Zealand.

Alluding to the trauma suffered by offenders is unpopular for some people, and inevitably results in statements that 'you are making excuses for serious crime': no, I am not.  I am though highlighting a reality that we need to deal with if we are to create a safer, more just society.  By focusing on their trauma of experienced by offenders I am offering one explanation for their behaviour, and not a reason to ignore the harm they cause others. 

Let Us In!

The crime control sector needs to let go, it needs to grow up, it needs to stop being so risk adverse, and allow independent researchers like myself and others to undertake critical, independent research.

The principal crime control agencies have for some time now been making it very difficult for independent, critical researchers to scrutinise the performance of the ‘system’.

Oh, I know they will be able to cite a few examples since 2001 where they have allowed PhD students or other researchers 'in' to prisons to do research, for example... 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 Police, or Justice, or worse, their Minister.

I am talking about the strategy that the sector appears to be following the past few years of blocking critical research that does not suit agency 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 and others 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, have 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 grow 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, victims and service providers, believe 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.

Bias and Racism

And lastly, specifically on the issue of Maori over-representation in the criminal justice system:

In answer to the oft-heard statement that we Maori should step up and take responsibility of the offending and victimisation that occurs in our communities:

Yes we should, and we already are: from time to time we hear this comment from social commentators, shock jocks and the like, such as Mike Hoskins, Paul Henry, you know when some shocking incident takes place and invariably we hear ‘where are the Maori leaders?  Why aren’t they saying anything?  Why aren’t Maori doing anything, etc, etc.  The ready answer is a) is because they are busy doing the mahi (work), b) you (shock jocks and the like) are not exactly that important to us in terms of reporting what we are doing, c) such commentators appear to never go and find out for themselves what we are doing. I’ve not once heard of them going to say Te Whakaruruhau, Maori women’s refuge in Hamilton to look at their anti-violence work with Maori men in Waikeria Prison, or the numerous other Maori-run entities working with youth and adult offenders and victims, often with far less government financial support per client than mainstream service providers.  Such comments are therefore, uninformed and biased.

If you want us to do more then get out of our way: stop putting policy and financial barriers in  our way to developing more effective interventions for our own.  And while you are doing that, do something about the racism and bias that exists in both the frontline crime control agencies and also in the policy sector.  The claim by the Police Commissioner that there is no racism in police, only that some officers have ‘unconscious bias’ is nothing more than a political ruse designed to ignore the truth of racism within the force.  The existence of racism and bias in police and other criminal justice institutions in other western jurisdictions is well-evidenced, jurisdictions by the way that we regularly compare ourselves to.  What makes the Commissioner and his supporters believe our force is any different?  Perhaps it is because they continue to believe in the myth of New Zealand having the best race relations in the world?  Bias does exist in our system, and despite the best attempts to block independent research that I spoke of earlier, we do have empirical evidence that demonstrates this, starting with Moana Jackson’s 1988 report, 2 MRL attitudinal surveys in the 1990s, Roguski and Te Whaiti’s Police Perceptions of Maori research published in 2000.

If we Maori are to take up the challenge to do more, as we should, then just as importantly, crime control institutions and the policy sector in New Zealand need to be more open and honest about the bias and racism that exists in our institutions and do something concrete about these issues.  And if they do, perhaps then, together, we can change the landscape of criminal justice in this country, and Minister Little can not only meet his 30% target, one that becomes sustainable over time.

Harry Tam - Engaging with Hard to Reach Communities

This post offers an opportunity for people to listen to Harry Tam, life-long member of the Mongrel Mob, staunch advocate for social development support for the poor, and those whanau and communities long neglected by the political class and policy makers of New Zealand.

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.

I Hope Australia Wins the Rugby World Cup - There, I Said It!

Lately I've been starting to think that Australia doesn't like us Kiwi's very much; yes the whole country, or at least it's starting to look that way, especially as we get closer to the rugby world cup final and Australian sports fans contemplate the joys of playing the All Blacks. Not being a fan of rugby I generally don't care about the outcome of test matches, except games between these two teams because regardless of the outcome I know I am going to get crap from some of my Aussie mates: if we lose it's a week of pathetic sheep shagger comments, of Kiwi sportspeople being chokers, etc, etc.  And it's no better if we win, because the comments swap to us Kiwi's being arrogant, poor winners if by chance even the slightest hint of a smile should cross my lips anytime over the next few days. I have a good Aussie friend who told me earlier this year that he didn't go to the pub to watch the games anymore because he was "sick of all the arrogant Kiwi's carrying on if the AB's win". I've tried to be sympathetic, but I simply can't be because it is obvious to me that he is mistaking joy and humble pride with arrogance because let's face it, as an Aussie rugby fan he hasn't enjoyed either of those feelings too often over the past 8 years or so of regular hidings from the men in black.

Although I am not a fan I will still be rooting for the All Black's to win, but a small part of me, deep in my gut, would be happy for an Aussie win, just so I can avoid the whining and crying of my sports obsessed Aussie mates, all of whom seem to possess a gene from birth that makes them believe that their country should dominate New Zealand in all sports. For my Aussie male friends, it seems to be an affront to their fragile masculinity anytime we beat them in either of the main rugby codes.  And so it has been a particularly painful time for them since 2008, and for me who has to listen to hours of excuses about the grass being too long, of Ritchie McCaw being offside, etc, etc.

But one particular reason why I wouldn't be upset if the Aussies won is because now my friends have a new jibe to throw into the mix of insults and moans they can deploy against my fragile psych, namely the fact that we Kiwi's are a bunch of violent, criminal thugs who should, and are being deported at an increasing rate back to New Zealand. I am referring to the fact that recent changes to legislation in Australia make it easier for officials to deport New Zealander's with criminal histories back to the homeland.

In summary, the facts are these (for more detailed information on this issue and related to the permanent residency and visa issues for New Zealander's I recommend you access the following Facebook page of Vicky Rose, manager of the Nerang Neighbourhood Centre,https://www.facebook.com/votevicky/): 

• recent changes to legislation means that New Zealander's either on a visa (no, you do not automatically become a permanent resident upon arrival), or indeed who is a permanent  resident can have their visa/status revoked due to criminal offending;
• your visa can be revoked and you can be deported back to New Zealand if you commit an offence that results in a prison sentence of 1 year or more;
• your visa can be revoked if you fail what is called the 'bad character test', meaning that you can be deported if you have served prison sentences that accumulate to 1 year or more timed serviced (for example, 2 sentences of six months, or 3 sentences of say 3-4 months each); and
• you can also be deported if you are a permanent resident; if you have been one for less than ten years then once again, your status can be revoked if you are sentenced to a term in prison of 1 year or more.

The numbers of New Zealander's currently being held under these powers varies, but it appears that as of late October 2015 there are up to 200 New Zealander's being held in detention centres both around Australia, and, of particular concern to some, in this country's offshore detention centres, such as Christmas Island.  This fact is of concern to some because it is in these institutions that the Australian government detains refugee's, or as government officials prefer to call them, 'illegal economic migrants'; people fleeing countries experiencing civil war, or war perpetrated against them by Australia and its 'coalition of who gives a sh&t about international law'.

The rhetoric offered by government officials and member of Cabinet, including Prime Minister Turnbull when commenting on this issue to the media, usually consists of one or all of the following justifications:

1. the people being detained and deported are serious offenders who pose a risk to the community;
2. their deportation is important for 'keeping Australia safe'; and
3. there is a process in place for review of the deportation process, which is open to all those detained.

However, the reality of who is being detained, their offending histories, and the process itself, exposes the self-serving nature of these justifications.

For a start, not all of the people detained and awaiting deportation are serious offenders, unless of course you consider people with low-level property offending, fraud, dishonesty-type offences as being a 'serious risk to the community'.  A nuisance yes, a serious threat? Probably not. And the reality is that many of those already deported and awaiting deportation fall into this category. Remember, you don't have to have committed a serious offence, such as one of the raft of violence related, or drug related offences; you can in fact be deported for a series of non-violent, and therefore in my opinion, non-serious offences which accumulate to 1 year or more time served in prison, to have your visa revoked under the character test. But this little inconvenient truth is often neatly passed over by officials and Cabinet Minister's, many of whom appear to be happy to erroneously portray the New Zealander's affected by the process as a bunch of violent, dangerous thugs.  Yes, some of them are, but many others are not.

Second, given some of the cases reported in New Zealand media of late, one has to question the veracity, indeed the ethics of the review process.  Take for example the recent case reported in the New Zealand Herald of a 56 year-old quadriplegic man deported with nothing but $200 and an accommodation voucher, but with no friends or family to take care of him when  he arrived.  This man had lived in Australia for 36 years before having his visa withdrawn.  His 'serious crime(s)' that demonstrated he was a danger to the Australian community?  Self-medicating drugs, painkillers for which he served 2 sentences totalling 13 months of prison time. Surely an ethical, just review process, as opposed to one that exists for appearances only, took into account the fact that a) his offending did not victimise others, b) his obvious health issues, and c) the social circumstances he faced if deported?  Sadly, or perhaps predictably, it did not.

Or what about Angela Russell, a 40 year-old who had lived in Australia for 37 years after moving from New Zealand as a child?  Her children, a boy aged 4 and a girl aged 17, are both Australian citizens. But 2 weeks before her release date from a short stint of imprisonment, she received a letter from the Australian government informing her she was to be deported because she had failed a 'character test'.

Ms Russell's is not the only incident where New Zealander's who have been, or are about to be deported, who are what some criminologists refer to as life-course persistent offenders.  They also have something else in common, the fact that they came to Australia at a very young age, and face deportation 15, 20 or even 30 years later. And it is this practice that reveals to me both the condescension and contradictions behind the Australian government's rationale for the process, and its ethical flaws.  In deporting such people, the Australian government is not exporting back to New Zealand  a crime, community safety and risk problem created by, or in New Zealand: in actuality the Australian government is exporting their crime problem to New Zealand. The condescension behind the Australian government's attempts to justify the process is evident in the fact that officials, and no doubt some Minister's of the Crown, are fully aware that they are exporting to New Zealand a problem created by the social, cultural and political environment of their country. They are cynically using their recently reconstituted 'white Australia' immigration and visa policies to export undesirable members of the Australian community to country's, such as New Zealand, that had little or no part to play in the deportee's becoming a 'risk' to society.  

As I write this blog, and if you believe the hype, both countries are gearing up for the rugby world cup final. A lot of the overblown bullsh&t and commentary in the formal and social media has included references to the fierce, yet generally respectful nature of the rivalry, often followed by a reference to this being forged on the battlefield of Gallipoli, as a contemporary manifestation of the ANZAC spirit, and so on. The same cannot be said for the way in which successive Australian governments have shafted New Zealander's in relation to social security, visa and now crime control policies. In stripping us of the rights that their own citizens enjoy when residing in my country, and because they are more than happy to pocket the millions in taxes we pay into the coffers each year while purposely exporting a crime control problem forged in their own backyard, Australian politicians and policy makers are demonstrating that at least on their side of the Tasman, the ANZAC spirit exists in rhetoric only.  

Eugenics as Crime Prevention

The following blog is the first in a series of guest commentaries by scholars working on issues of interest and importance to Indigenous communities. The author of this commentary is 

Dr Antje Deckert

who writes about the resurrection of eugenics as a policy (and practical) process for 'controlling' Māori.

The Commentary

In August 2015, the New Zealand Children’s Commissioner reported that Child Youth & Families (CYF) recorded around 16,000 substantiated cases of child abuse in parental care, and 117 cases while children are in CYF care.[i] Most abuse cases in CYF care were of violent nature (physical or sexual abuse), while statistics on abuse in parental care also include neglect and emotional abuse.

Abuse statistics demonstrate that Māori children make up 42% of violent abuse victims (49% of physically and 38% of sexually abused children), while Pakeha children make up 33% of violent abuse victims (29% of physically and 50% of sexually abused children). Compared to Pakeha children, CYF considered twice as many Māori children to have been neglected or emotionally abused, which leads to total abuse statistics of 49% for Māori children, compared to 29% for Pakeha children. Therefore, any claim about the gross overrepresentation of Māori in child abuse statistics depends significantly on which forms of abuse are included in the analysis, and, arguably, which cultural paradigm defines neglect and emotional abuse.

Over 16,000 abuse cases in a total population of 1,161,387 children, means that 1.46% of Kiwi children suffer abuse while in parental care, compared to 3.04% of children who are in CYF care. However, this comparison neglects that most child abuse cases while in CYF care were reportedly of a violent nature. When discounting cases of emotional abuse and neglect in parental care, 0.29% of Kiwi children suffer violent abuse while in parental care, compared to 3.04% of children in CYF care. Arguably, this contradicts CYF’s mission statement that:

“A fundamental expectation we have is that children who come into contact with CYF should be better off as a result. […] CYF’s practice framework talks about keeping children safe from abuse and neglect, providing them with secure care.”

Institutional abuse disproportionately affects Māori children since they constitute around 55% of all children in CYF care. However, reporting on abuse cases in CYF care lacks a breakdown by ethnicity and indigeneity. Therefore, it is impossible to determine whether some children may actually face a lower risk of abuse in parental care than in CYF’s care.

Despite, or maybe because CYF fails to keep Kiwi children safe, the government is now contemplating another avenue in order to shed its responsibility for the prevention of child abuse – eugenics.

On 27^th September 2015 NZ’s Minister for Social Development, Anne Tolley, was interviewed on national radio. The conversation revolved around the preliminary review, and recommended overhaul of CYF. The review was triggered by the 2014 Glenn Inquiry which had identified major shortcomings in CYF’s service delivery. Tolley was questioned about early intervention strategies, and specifically whether CYF considers stopping certain people from having (more) children. The Minister responded:

“That’s very difficult for the State to do. I certainly think we should be providing more family planning, more contraceptive advice to some of the families that we know […]. I mean I know of cases that CYF have taken a sixth and seventh baby from. […] That’s a big step when the State starts telling people [if they] can have another child […]. That’s a huge step for the State to take. […] I’ll wait and see what the panel reports. I expect that they will be saying that we should get much faster contraceptive advice in. We should be offering […] tubal ligations, all sorts of things.”

Since the Glenn Inquiry has revealed that CYF staff are “bullies” who interact with clients in a judgmental, punitive and disrespectful manner; one can only imagine how such contraceptive “advice” is going to be packaged. Tolley’s suggestion inspired at least one Kiwi blogger to consider possible delivery formats of such contraceptive advice, including “positive incentives (pay them not to have more kids or get sterilised) [and] negatives incentives (no further welfare if they have further children).” Since Māori dominate the statistics of households with four or more children, this eugenic crime prevention strategy would disproportionately be directed at women of Māori descent.

However, this is not the first time that a Minister of Social Development has considered eugenics as a form of crime prevention. Paula Bennett, then in office, suggested as recently as in 2012 that any children born to potentially abusive mothers could be forcibly removed, and that the Family Court could have the power to prevent abusive women from having any more children.

Throughout New Zealand history, eugenics have provided middle-class Pakeha women with a discourse of social reform that neatly tied into the ideals of colonialism and therefore enabled these self-proclaimed ‘feminists’ to participate in the national debate about ‘racial health’. They portrayed themselves as the ‘mothers of the race’ while prescribing eugenic solutions for ‘deviant women’. Without hesitation, Tolley is stepping into the footsteps of her ancestors.

Considering that around 3% of Kiwi children in CYF care suffer violent abuse compared to 0.3% of children in parental care, the first Family Court order for tubal ligation should be addressed to the State. Especially because the State is unable to act as a role model in keeping children safe from abuse, the government should scrutinise both its ethical stance , and historical practices of abuse before directing eugenic solutions disguised as ‘early intervention strategies’ at its citizens, and disproportionately so at Indigenous women.

References

Children’s Commissioner (2015). State of Care: What we learnt from monitoring Child Youth and Family. Retrieved from http://www.occ.org.nz/assets/Publications/OCC-State-of-Care-2015.pdf

Farrar, D. (2015, September 28). How to encourage bad parents to stop having kids. [Blog post]. Retrieved from http://www.kiwiblog.co.nz

George, P. (2015, September 28). Why did Tolley talk about contraception? [Blog post]. Retrieved from http://yournz.org

Merchant, R. S. (2010). Who are abusing our children? An exploratory study on reflections on child abuse by media comments [MA thesis]. Massey University: New Zealand. Retrieved from http://mro.massey.ac.nz/bitstream/handle/10179/1612/02_whole.pdf?sequence=2

Ministry of Social Development (2015). Modernising Child Youth and Family: Expert panel interim report. Retrieved from https://www.msd.govt.nz/documents/about-msd-and-our-work/work-programmes/cyf-modernisation/interim-report-expert-panel.pdf

Raumati, G. H. (2009). “Warrior genes” and the disease of being Māori. MAI Review, 2, 1-11.

Statistics New Zealand (2013). Quick Stats on Māori. Available from www.stats.govt.nz

Wanhalla, A. (2007). To ‘better the breed of men’: Women and eugenics in New Zealand, 1900-1935. Women’s History Review, 16, 163-182.

Wynd, D. (2013). Child abuse: An analysis of Child Youth and Family data. Auckland: Child Poverty Action Group.

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[i] For the purposes of this analysis, it is assumed that abuse statistics affect the age group of 0-19 year olds, since CYF does not provide demographic details.