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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Social Services to Prison Pipeline

By Dr Antje Deckert

Over the last five years, US criminologists have popularised the catch-phrase ‘the school to prison pipeline’ arguing that the US public school system tends to neglect and expel students who are in need of extra educational and social support. Since miseducation is linked to increased chances of incarceration, systemic neglect creates a vicious cycle or a pipeline effect. In the US, the pipeline disproportionately affects children of African American and Hispanic descent. It is argued that, in New Zealand, we are witnessing ‘the school to prison pipeline’ and ‘the social services to prison pipeline’; both of which disproportionately affect Māori children.

In New Zealand’s child abuse statistics, Māori make up 49% of physically and 38% of sexually abused children, while Pakeha make up 29% of physically and 50% of sexually abused children. Compared to Pakeha kids, Child Youth and Families (CYF) considered twice as many Māori children to have been neglected or emotionally abused, which leads to a total abuse statistics of 49% for Māori children, compared to 29% for Pakeha children.

In 2013, CYF placed 3,844 children in out-of-home care, of these 2,113 were Māori children and 1,324 Pakeha kids. It is reasonable to assume that most of these children must have suffered some form of violent abuse in order to justify a separation from their families. Considering the total numbers of sexually and physically abused children, Māori represent 42% and Pakeha 33% of violent abuse victims. However, of all children placed into CYF out-of-home care, 55% were Māori and 35% were Pakeha, which means that CYF places Māori children excessively in out-of-home care. In fact, there is an 11 percent point difference between Pakeha and Māori kids. It is estimated that of the total 3,844 children, around 200 Pakeha and 600 Māori children were placed into out-of-home care to protect them from non-violent parental abuse.

That means that Māori children make up roughly 70% of all children who are placed into out-of-home care because of neglect or emotional abuse. These figures indicate that racial bias influences CYF decisions about placing children into out-of-home care, at least in cases of non-violent abuse. That racial bias affects New Zealand media reporting on child abuse cases has been confirmed by research undertaken at Massey University in 2010. The study found that, compared to actual statistics, New Zealand mainstream newspapers tend to over-report the abuse of Māori children. Moreover, ethnicity is not mentioned in newspaper articles when the abused child is not of Māori or Pacific Island descent.

The future of children who are placed in CYF care, looks generally bleak. It is a future that entails a high risk of further abuse while in CYF care (see blog entry from 20^th October 2015), educational underachievement, depression, and drug and alcohol abuse. Children in CYF care are also more likely to offend and be incarcerated. The Children’s Commissioner explains in his 2015 report:

In 2014, 328 young people aged 14-16 [and in CYF care] committed an offence resulting in a court-directed family group conference. This accounts for about 13 percent of all court-directed referrals to youth justice during this period. This means about 30 percent of children in care between the ages of 14 and 16 are being charged with offences, compared to about 1 percent of children this age cohort in the general population.

Evidently, CYF produces consistently poor social and educational outcomes for children who are in its care. CYF’s racially biased placement practices guarantee that it is predominantly Māori children who are being fed through ‘the social services to prison pipeline’.

And as if the situation wasn’t disturbing enough, neo-liberal forces may make matters worse in the near future. In 2015, the Modernising CYF Expert Panel was tasked to provide authoritative advice on CYF’s future operating model. In its interim report from 31^st July, the panel recommends that “we will need to engage with the non-government and private sectors in creative and non-traditional ways. Legislation may be required to realise some of these potential opportunities.” A month later, Prime Minister John Key confirmed that at least some CYF services may be privatised.

In September, SERCO case managers were found visiting several CYF facilities in Auckland. SERCO is the international corporation that currently runs two private prisons in the Auckland area; the remand prison Mt Eden and the Wiri men’s prison. On 24^th September 2015, Social Development Minister Anne Tolley claimed that these site visits were unrelated to any CYF privatisation plans but rather revolved around the transition of young people from CYF care into SERCO ‘care’:

There are occasionally young people on indictable charges, and it’s obvious they will be transferred from youth justice to the prison system. There needs to be a well-managed transition.

When 30% of children in CYF care are being prosecuted compared to 1% of children in the general population, saying “OCCASSIONALLY young people will be transferred” is not just a wrong choice of words. It is, in fact, a conscious and deliberate distortion of reality.

If CYF services were to be (partly) privatised, SERCO’s profit interest would have to determine how it delivers its support services to young people and their families. Since CYF has established a tradition of providing prisons with a steady stream of inmates, SERCO’s profit interest would be best served by continuing this legacy. It would be even more profitable for SERCO to increase the number of children who are fed through ‘the social services to prison pipeline’. However, it wouldn’t even matter if SERCO or another private business takes over CYF services because the pipeline serves profit interests at both ends. In either case, CYF privatisation would offer SERCO an opportunity to control (or at least stimulate) the influx of CYF ‘clients’ and thus increase its profit margin in the prison system; because what would constitute a ‘kickback’ in governmental operation of CYF, would merely be considered profit-sharing between two private businesses. Since CYF has already established a tradition of placing Māori children excessively into out-of-home care, there is no doubt that after CYF service privatisation most children in CYF care (and later inmates) would be of Māori descent as well. It demonstrates once again that colonisation isn’t just a historic event of the past. Colonisation continues its repressive operations in social, political, economic and cultural processes.

References

Brook, K. (2015). Restorative justice practices needed in classrooms. Available from http://www.comsdev.canterbury.ac.nz/rss/news/?articleId=1601

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

Cunneen, C. and Rowe, S. (2014). Changing narratives: Colonised peoples, criminology, and social work. International Journal for Crime, Justice and Social Democracy, 3, 49-67.

Kim, C., Losen, D., and  Hewitt, D. (2010). The School-to-Prison Pipeline: Structuring Legal Reform. New York: NYU Press.

Merchant, R. (2010). Who are abusing our children? An exploratory study on reflections on child abuse by media comments [MA thesis]. Massey University: New Zealand. Available from http://mro.massey.ac.nz

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

Radio New Zealand (August, 31, 2015) Key: More CYF private sector involvement possible. Available from http://www.radionz.co.nz

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

Three News (September 24, 2015). CYF sites visited by Serco - Tolley. Available from http://www.3news.co.nz

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

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.