A Commentary on Criminological Elitism

As revealed by the Norwegian sociologist, Victor Shammas (year unknown), one of the key concerns of sociologists of punishment, and criminologists, has been the impact on the policy making process and the wider body politic, of penal populism.  Shammas defines penal populism as the ways in which political parties have competed with one another to present themselves to the voting public as exponents of a politics of law and order.  Exponents routinely promise the electorate ‘tough on crime’ responses, matched by longer prison sentences, harsher punishment regimes, all supported by an ever-expanding prison complex and police force.  Penal populism is best viewed as a collaborative project that encompasses a triumvirate made up of the political/policy class, the media and the ‘community’ who work off (and with) each other in a mutually beneficial project based on the generation of fear, victimisation, demonisation and moral panic.

 Shammas rightly points out that besides the lack of evidence of the effectiveness of the policies and interventions that generally result from penal populism, the process also involves the marginalisation of the right sort of commentator, namely sociologists and criminologists, who offer an empirically informed, ‘neutral’, objective, sophisticated view of the world of deviance.  In a policy process dominated by penal populism, the technical and empirical knowledge of the criminological elite is sidelined, or as Shamma beautifully states it, “supplanting the (putatively) reflective, restrained, and rehabilitationist dispositions of a rational, reasonable elite who were tasked with shaping the field of crime control in past times”.

 In Shammas’ thesis, the sociological and criminological experts represent the physical manifestation of the mirror concept of ‘penal elitism’, which he describes as “the normative (over)valuation of elites and consequent devaluation of the public’s right to determine the field of crime control”.  My translation: the massive egos of the academic elite leads them to believe that only their views and perspectives should impact crime control policy, while the perspectives and experiences of Joe Blog should not (unless of course it has first been filtered through the world view of an academic).  Shamma then claims that unlike penal populism, which has received extensive attention from the penal elite, penal elitism has itself received little critical attention; thus “leading a largely subterranean existence, rarely, if ever, subjected to reflexive scrutiny”.

 Well, not quite: as part of a wider critique of racism in the western academy, the ‘other’ academy is fighting back and increasingly exposing the bigotry and condescension that lies at the heart of the mainstream academy.  This is true also of mainstream criminology, a discipline some commentators hold partially responsible for the ongoing subjugation of the poor, Indigenous peoples, and the descendants of slaves residing in North America and the Caribbean (see for example Agozino, 2003; Kitossa, 2012; Tauri, 2016, and for discussion of racism and bias in the academy per se, see Fredericks, 2009; Gunstone, 2009; Harrison, 2012).

 I will now take Shamma’s thesis and apply it specifically to the discipline of criminology, and most especially to the ‘types’ of criminology – the administrative and authoritarian strains prevalent in Australasia - and criminologists - namely white, middle class and non-Indigenous - who market themselves as criminological experts on Indigenous peoples and Indigenous issues.  I believe Shamma’s analysis of the mirrored concepts of penal populism/penal elitism provides fertile ground for understanding the ongoing bigotry that sits at the heart of the criminological enterprise, most especially to the work many of its adherents do on ‘coloured folk’ the world over.

 The Deceit and Condescension of the Criminological Elite

I  wish to begin by reframing Shamma’s concepts of penal populism and penal elitism so they refer more directly to my commentary on mainstreams criminology’s ‘attitude’ towards Indigenous peoples, including Indigenous academics and criminologists:

 Criminological Elitism

The normative (over)valuation of non-Indigenous criminologists’ perspectives on Indigenous peoples and Indigenous issues to influence crime control policy in relation to ‘the Indigenous problem’, supported by the purposeful devaluation of Indigenous perspectives and experiences (see below).

 Indigenous Populism           

The representation of Indigenous perspectives and experiences of crime control and the work of Indigenous criminologists, as lacking in ‘objectivity’, resulting in knowledge derived from ‘unscientific’ methods of observing, measuring, analysing and ‘knowing’.  In other words, the purposeful denigration of Indigenous epistemologies and methodologies, and the refutation of Indigenous peoples rights to self-determination.

 And so, exactly how do these two, intertwined concepts manifest through the behaviours and attitudes of mainstream criminologists in the Australasian context?  There are the obvious examples, or strategies through which this occurs, some of which I have discussed previously, both here in my blog and in published academic work (see Tauri, 2017), but the most common include:

 The denigration of Indigenous knowledge

A common strategy in Australasian criminology, usually in the form of derogatory comments about ‘others’ knowledges being ‘non-scientific’, ‘non-rationale’, gathered and disseminated using inadequate methods, gathered by practitioners ‘too close to the sources’, and so on.  The strategy is used to create the impression that Indigenous knowledge and experiences of crime control AND criminology are subjective, irrational and ‘emotional’, and therefore should not impact the development of crime control policy (for recent, classic examples of this strategy see Marie, 2010 and Weatherburn, 2010; 2015).

 Exaggerated notions of criminological scientism

Closely linked to the silencing of Indigenous voices and experiences is the exaggeration by mainstream criminologists as to the scientific bases for their research.  Or as Shamma eloquently describes it “[the[ strong belief in the supremacy of rationalism and science” that forms the basis for the ideological construction of a “stereotypical opposition between reason and emotion, rationality and intuition, science and lay knowledge… in short between (elevated) scientific expertise and the (debased) ‘people’”.

 Many mainstream, Australasian criminologists seem to be under the mistaken belief that they and their work is ‘neutral’ and ‘objective’.  This especially appears to be a case for those who choose to ‘research from afar’, who prefer desk-based research in lieu of actually talking to Indigenous peoples about their experiences (see Deckert, 2016).  One can easily surmise that the two strategies are closely linked because if you are a) going to denigrate the knowledge systems of others, then you must also b) create the illusion that your ‘way of knowing’ is the only one of value.

 And it is in this realm that things get really interesting for the Indigenous scholar, because the way in which this strategy is constructed and deployed in the service of whitestream criminology is devastatingly effective.  For not only is it deployed to silence Indigenous communities, to invalidate their anti-criminal justice statements, but also to discredit the epistemologies and methodologies employed by Indigenous scholars.  This is done in the hope that their community-informed texts will be superseded by the more ‘scientifically derived, detached commentary of the white privileged criminologist (for an exploration of this strategy in the wider academy see Moreton-Robinson, 2000).

The silencing of Indigenous voices and experience

Another common strategy that involves non-Indigenous scholars conveniently ignoring the Indigenous lexicon; the research, publications and public pronouncements of Indigenous scholars, activists and community members despite the easy availability of said material.  This strategy appears to be common amongst restorative justice scholars and advocates, especially when they are commenting on the ‘Indigenousness’ of RJ and their favourite RJ products.  Absent from their ramblings is any meaningful engagement with criticisms by Indigenous scholars.  This strategy, of ‘forgetting’ (perhaps more accurately, ‘ignoring’), is especially common amongst New Zealand RJ advocates such as Maxwell (2008), Morris (2002) and McElrea (2003) (for a recent example see Henwood and Stafford, 2014, and my critique of this publication, Tauri, 2015).

 Indigenous contributions as criminological ‘piece-work’

One of the increasingly popular strategies, is for criminology departments to confine the teaching of Indigenous issues within ‘mainstream’ papers, to a lecture here (on Maori and prisons), and there (Maori and policing), more often than not given by a non-Indigenous criminologist with no experience of researching the actual topic with Indigenous people.  This is a rather peculiar situation, given both the extent of Indigenous over-representation in criminal justice, and the demonstrable lack of success by settler-colonial governments in effectively responding to the problem.

 Dove-tail this strategy with the lack of commitment (or ability) of criminology departments in general, to hiring Indigenous scholars (yes, we are rare, but if you get off your asses and strategise, put some effort into growing Indigenous post-grads, etc, it is possible), you have the basis for explaining why the drop-out rates of Indigenous students is higher than the norm; no, it is not because they are not as smart as their non-Indigenous colleagues, but because what is being taught does not resonate with them or their life experiences.  For example, when a well-known, senior New Zealand criminologist stands in front of an introductory criminology class, as one did a few years ago, and in response to a question from a Maori student about the devastation of white law on Maori, states that ‘if white people did not come here Maori would still be axing each other’, then you will lose those students to other disciplines.

 The main point I am trying to make here is this: in general, in the Australasian context, the criminology academy’s commitment to teaching and researching Indigenous issues, is piecemeal: our knowledge, our experiences are more often than not add-ons that enable departments to tick the Indigenous box in their yearly reports.  And far too many of Indigenous scholars hired by criminology departments are treated as ‘piece-workers’, teaching the small amount of 'Indigenous stuff' the whitestream academy finds will allow it to fulfil its 'Treaty' and 'Reconciliation' obligations under the University's Aboriginal Strategy.

Racism and bigotry

And last but not least, there is the strategy of outright racism and bigotry, whether it is the micro-level aggressions we experience every day, such as colleagues placing our names on grant applications as ‘cultural advisors’ without actually seeking our advice, to using our Aboriginality as an argument for shedding their committee work to us (as in ‘we so need an Aboriginal voice on this committee’, regardless of the fact that said committee doesn’t actually need one).  Then there are the macro-aggressions, such as the construction of the Indigenous critic of institutional practice as aggressive, emotional, dangerous (and therefore in need of  increased surveillance and scrutiny), in order to draw attention away from the unethical and disempowering conduct of non-Indigenous members of the academy; or demonstrating commitment to the aims of institutional Indigenous strategies by cutting the number of Indigenous courses, or only hiring Indigenous members of staff on contracts and not in tenure track positions (until they ‘prove themselves), and so forth.

 References

Agozino B. (2003) Counter-Colonial Criminology: A Critique of Imperialist Reason. London: Pluto Press.

Deckert A (2016) Criminologists, Duct Tape, and Indigenous People: Quantifying the Use of Silencing Research Methods. International Journal of Comparative and Applied Criminal Justice 40(1): 43-62.

Fredericks, B (2009) The Epistemology that Maintains White Race Privilege, Power and Control of Indigenous Studies and Indigenous Peoples’ Participation in Universities, Australian Critical Race and Whiteness Studies Association eJournal, 5(1): 1-12.

Gunstone, A (2009) Whiteness, Indigenous Peoples and Australian Universities, Australian Critical Race and Whiteness Studies Association e-Journal.

Harrison, F (2012) Racism in the Academy: Toward a Multi-Methodological Agenda for Anthropological Engagement. American Anthropological Association.

Henwood, C and Stratford, S (2014) A Gift to the World: The Youth Justice Family Group Conference. Wellington: The Henwood Trust.

Kitossa, T (2012) Criminology and colonialism: Counter colonial criminology and the Canadian context, Journal of Pan African Studies, 4(1), pp. 204-226. 

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

McElrea, F (2003) Restorative justice— a New Zealand perspective, ADR Bulletin, 6(1): Article 3.

Morris, A (2002) Critiquing the Critics: A Brief Response to the Critics of Restorative Justice, British Journal of Criminology, 42(3): 596-615.

Moreton-Robinson, E (2000) Talking up to the White Woman: Indigenous Women and Feminism. Brisbane: University of Queensland Press.

Shammas, V (unknown) Penal Elitism: Anatomy of a Professional Ideology; available via Academia.

Tauri, J (2015) Beware Justice Advocates Bearing Gifts: A Commentary on the Glorification of Family Group Conferencing, New Zealand Sociology, 30(1): 183-190. 

Tauri, J (2016) The State, Crime Control and Indigenous Justice: A Counter-colonial Critique, PhD thesis, University of Wollongong.

Tauri, J (2017) Imagining the Future of Indigenous Criminology, in A. Deckert and R. Sarre (eds), Australian and New Zealand Handbook of Criminology, Crime and Justice, Palgrave Macmillan.

 

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.

'Statistics, Damn Statistics.. and Bullsh*t': a Critique of 'Newboldian' Criminological Analysis of Maori and Crime

The following entry is a response to analysis of Maori and crime made by Professor Greg Newbold during a debate with Moana Jackson on Maori TV's Native Affairs in June 2013.

Introduction 

In previous blogs I have argued that one of the key issues facing First Nation peoples is the propensity for non-Indigenous commentators (whether criminologists, journalists or shock-jocks) to talk bullshit about First Nation peoples and crime.  More often than not, when critically analysing their comments you find that rarely is their position/perspective or critique backed by empirical research of the kind that requires you actually go talk to Indigenous peoples about their experiences of crime and crime control.  

A few weeks ago we observed yet another episode of this kind of behaviour, this time in the form of University of Canterbury criminologist, Professor Greg Newbold's performance on Maori TV's excellent show, Native Affairs (Monday 17 June, 2013).  I recommend that anyone who hasn't seen the show do so as it represents an interesting approach to the issue of whether or not police practice in New Zealand is biased, and whether or not bias plays a part in incidents that result in police shooting and killing Maori.  

The part of the show dedicated to this topic covered a number of issues, including an interesting discussion with Wally Haumaha from NZ Police National Headquarters, who's comments on the possibility of police bias were far more reticent than those offered recently on the same topic by the current Police Commissioner who unequivocally stated that there was no 'bias in New Zealand Police', and that perceptions of it as such were uninformed.  

It should come as no surprise that senior management of New Zealand Police would make these kinds statements despite empirical and anecdotal evidence to the contrary (e.g. Jackson, 1988; MRL, 1993; 1995; New Zealand Police and Te Puni Kokiri, 2001). If we take the Commissioner's position and that expressed later in the piece by Professor Newbold, then none of this 'evidence' is of any use to a debate on the issue of bias because it isn't the 'right' kind of evidence (more on that point below). In the case of the Commissioner, he was using the time honoured strategy employed of New Zealand police officials to sideline criticism of the organisation, namely presenting research or commentary that demonstrates the existence of bias or racism within the organisation as simply a reflection of peoples uninformed 'perceptions' of policing, rather than their actual experiences of it.  

The term 'perception' is critical to any/all discussions on the issue of bias in the criminal justice system, because it is a favourite rhetorical device of policy makers/criminal justice officials and Authoritarian Criminologists in New Zealand and other Settler Societies, who seek to dismiss any criticism of their activities, especially by minorities and First Nations. In using this term commentators are implying that we never 'experience' policing, we only have uninformed, unevidenced 'perceptions' of it.  

The underlying bias inherent in this  semantic stupidity is obvious when you analyse it for what it is saying about the Indigenous experience and critical criminological commentary: 1) 'We (in this case New Zealand Police) reject any and all accusations of bias in our dealings with Maori or any other population group; therefore 2) any evidence/claims of said bias is pure fiction, based on unsubstantiated perception; 3) any evidence that is generated via empirical research is tainted by the fact it was carried out by a biased researcher (meaning anyone who disagrees with or critiques the organisation is automatically assumed to be biased/subjective/probably a tree-hugging socialist, etc, etc); 4) anyone having experienced policing who then claims bias can be dismissed because they are probably an offender (who we haven't caught yet), or someone in their family is/was, so anything they say is invalid; and 5) we actually have no evidence to support our claim there is no bias, but in our case we don't need to prove any statements we make, unlike our critics'.

Before discussing Professor Newbold's statements, I want to make the following response to senior managers within the New Zealand Police, starting with the current Commissioner -  your recent claim that there is no bias in the force is clearly ridiculous and contradicts the small amount of research that has been published on this issue, and the stated position of some of your predecessors. If you actually believe the comments you made on this issue and if you are inferring that New Zealand's is the only police force in any Western jurisdiction that has no bias/racism, then you a) need to do more reading (such as the aforementioned New Zealand material and perhaps some of the hundreds of reports from other western jurisdictions, such as Bowling and Phillips, 2007, Hall et al, 1989 and Holdaway, 1996 amongst numerous others) and/or b) resign because someone this uninformed shouldn't be in charge of such a powerful institution.

So, how about we put aside the bullsh*t and work to do something about the problem... cool?  And a good start would be for the key justice agencies, the Ministry of Justice in particular, to step aside and allow independent, critical research on the topic of bias (see previous comments on this issue, in earlier blogs); which brings me to Professor Newbold's comments on Maori, crime and bias. 

The Newboldian Perspective on Maori and Crime

Let me begin by saying that I have great respect for Professor Newbold's work on penal policy in New Zealand; but that this respect usually evaporates when he comments on Maori issues.  

As for his latest attempt at expert commentary on Maori crime, where to begin?  We could spend an hour alone talking about his insensitive, provocative comments that a Maori victim of a police shooting should have been shot in the heart and not the head.  I note that Greg has refused to apologise for these words, claiming he was only stating a 'fact'.  Indeed, this is true to a point, police are (or should be) trained to aim at the body as it is larger in mass and therefore easier to hit.  But it is equally reasonable to predict and prepare for the fact that the comment would be hugely insensitive to the deceased's whanau, friends and others in the community, that the attitude expressed would come across as arrogant and insensitive.  Personally, I suspect that Greg wouldn't give a shite about any of that, as he probably got the outcome he wanted, to be provocative and to sound informed. The fact that his comments added nothing substantive to the discussion that was taking place at that particular point was irrelevant. 

So instead, let's deal with other elements of the analysis Professor Newbold offered in what I will call his 'Newboldian analysis of Maori and crime', a world where bias, at least that which is directed at Maori, does not appear to be allowed to exist, and which is willed away regardless of existing evidence, or lack of evidence to the contrary.  And so to my critique and in no particular order of importance:

1. There is no evidence of police bias: yes there is, and as an experienced New Zealand criminologist I expect Professor Newbold to have read it.  Ah, but of course the main issue is the nature of the 'evidence', right?  According to Professor Newbold the only valid research is that which is 'controlled', meaning that which is 'scientific'.  This can only be described as a load of tutai which rather conveniently ignores an extensive amount of published, critical criminological material that critiques the methodologies he seems to prefer. I could list and discuss the criticisms here, but as Professor Newbold is an experienced criminologist I shouldn't have to, he should already know what they are. For everyone else, Jock Young's recent expose of the fallacy of 'scientific' criminology, The Criminological Imagination (2011) is a good place to start.

2. Maori are over-represented in the criminal justice system because of their violent offending and drunkenness (my paraphrasing of one of his key arguments):  Certainly, the levels and nature of our offending goes some way to explaining our over-representation, but to dismiss bias the way Professor Newbold did, is intellectually redundant and can be critiqued in a number of ways, a) by repeating that evidence of bias and racism does in fact exist, but to recognise it for what it is, requires putting aside convenient bias against 'non-scientific' research methodologies; b) by recognising that there is significant evidence that racism and bias exists in jurisdictions we often compare ourselves to, such as Great Britain and Australia, which then begs the question 'why would we be the exception to the rule'?  

In turn I would ask those making the argument that there is 'no evidence of bias', to provide evidence that everything is actually ok, that bias and racism does not exist: Just as bias alone cannot explain Maori over-representation, nor can one make, with any scholarly authority the simplistic argument that bias and racism has nothing to do with it.

3. Research in Australia demonstrates that Aboriginal peoples are treated more leniently by the criminal justice system: I take it that Professor Newbold was referring to research carried out by Jeffries and Bond?  In this particular case he was likely referring to their analysis of sentencing decision in New South Wales.  If so, yes their research did show that (but you might like to take a long, hard look at the 'scientific' methodology before using the findings uncritically, as was done here), but for some reason Professor Newbold failed to a) contextualise his argument by mentioning other research published by the same authors that demonstrates bias in sentencing-related decision-making in the Queensland jurisdiction (in particular the lower courts) (see Bond and Jeffries, 2011); and b) the existence of plenty of other research that demonstrates bias policing practices across various Australian jurisdictions, carried out by criminologists Harry Blagg, Thalia Anthony, Chris Cunneen and so on. 

4. The only valid research has be 'scientific'; it has to 'control' for certain variables: hogwash... see previous comments about the work of Jock Young.  The Professor might wish to engage with the qualitatively informed work on biased policing in England (Hall et al, 1978), just for starters and go from there to engage with the truckload of critical, 'grounded', ethnographic, detailed research that demonstrates the existence of bias in contemporary, Western, neo-liberal societies, like Great Britain, the U.S, Australia and... New Zealand. Comments made during Native Affairs about how complex bias research is/can be because of all the things you need to 'control for' is true to a point, but conveniently ignores the (validity of) research findings from scholars who employ observational and ethnograpnic techniques.  All of this demonstrates the weakness of some of the arguments Professor Newbold offered on Native Affairs. Overall, it appeared that the statements made were highly selective in terms of the so-called 'evidence' used to support them, while at the same time, a different 'measure' of quality was used to critique alternative perspectives.

and lastly

5. That the research Moana is carrying out on police/Maori engagements would only be valid when published in a 'reputable criminology journal': my response is to ask 'what qualifies as a reputable journal'?  Would it be Criminology, or the Australian New Zealand Journal of Criminology, or the Canadian Journal of Criminology and Criminal Justice, all of which have poor records of publishing research on bias based on engaging methodologies?  Is the Professor not aware of the inherent bias in many of the leading criminological journals and other publications, as pointed out by Biko Agozino (2003), who's expose is supported by a soon to be published article by Dr Antje Deckert (AUT University) that confirms the paucity of Indigenous-centred research across the entire range of 'reputable criminology journals' in Settler Societies? I have a sneaky suspicion that reputable Indigenous-focused journals such as MAI Review and the Indigenous Policy Journal, and perhaps even QUT's own International Journal for Crime and Justice, wouldn't make the Professor's list of 'reputable' journals, most likely because they break a cardinal rule of Authoritarian Criminology - namely that they publish research where academics have actually gone out and engaged with Indigenous peoples, and sought to privilege the Indigenous experience of crime control, rather than hide behind the 'cloak of objectivity'.

References
Agozino B (2003) Counter-Colonial Criminology: A Critique of Imperialist Reason. London: Pluto Press.  
Bond C and Jeffries S (2011) Indigeneity and the Likelihood of Imprisonment in Queensland’s Adult and Children’s Courts. Psychiatry, Psychology and Law 19(2): 169–183

Bowling B and Phillips C (2007) Disproportionate and Discriminatory: Reviewing the Evidence on Police Stop and Search. Modern Law Review 70(6): 936-961.

Hall S, Critcher C, Jefferson T, Clarke J, Roberts B (1978) Policing The Crisis: Mugging, the State and Law and Order. London: Macmillan.

Holdaway, S (1996) The Racialisation of British Policing.  London: Macmillan.

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

MRL Research Group (1993) Public Attitudes Towards Policing.  MRL Research Group, Wellington.

MRL Research Group (1995) Public Attitudes Towards Policing.  MRL Research Group, Wellington.

New Zealand Police and Te Puni Kokiri (2001) Challenging Perspectives: Police and Maori Attitudes Toward One Another.  New Zealand Police National Headquarters and Te Puni Kokiri, Wellington.