Is Criminology Broken?

 

The following blog entry is based on comments I made at the Critical Criminology symposium that took place at the University of Melbourne on  12-13 February 2025.

The purpose of the symposium was to try to kickstart the critical criminology conferences that used to occur regularly in the 2000s-2010's but had fallen away.

The comments were made during the pelnary panel session on the irst evening of the symposium, and addresses two interrelated questions:

'Is it ethically possible to work within the confines of Criminology and still undertake radical work'

Or

'Is the discipline irreparably broken and in need of dismantling and abolishing?'

 

Let’s break down the central question we, the panel have been asked to address, into its two main parts.

To the first part: Is it ethically possible to work within the confines of criminology and still undertake radical work?  Yes, absolutely: many, I would venture to suggest the majority of those involved in criminology in Australasia, continue to work within the discipline whilst remaining ignorant of the support they and the discipline provide to the racist, misogynist, homophobic criminal justice system. However, others are no doubt aware that their work provides to the continued violent and repressive strategies deployed by police against marginalised population, especially Indigenous peoples.

At the end of the day, it is possible to consider oneself as ‘working ethically within the confines of criminology’ because it is so easy for some to construct an ethics framework designed to insulating them from the barbs and critique of those who call into question, for example, the preferential use of non-engaging methodologies, as that wonderful term is defined and analysed by Antje Deckert.  For a classic example of this type of ‘cloaking’ strategy we need look to criminologists like Don Weatherburn who insulate themselves from critique of their 'non-engaging' research on Aboriginal peoples by cloaking themselves in the protective veil of scientism.

Is it possible to do radical work within a discipline that from its inception was, as revealed by the Nigerian scholar Biko Agozino, a control freak in service of the colonial project? Again, the answer is yes. And now I will make what appears at first glance a hugely contradictory claim: yes, it is indeed possible to work within criminology and do 'radical' work whole providing direct support to the settler-colonial state, because, from a critical Indigenous standpoint, what could be more radical than that?  From an Indigenous, community-centred derived ethics framework, nothing could be more ‘anti-ethical’ and therefore radical, than supporting the continued subjugation of the marginalised, the colonised, and the criminalised.

To the second part of the question, is the discipline irreparably broken?  The answer is no: to paraphrase a saying often used to describe the settler-colonial legal and justice systems, it is working just as it was intended to, as a key component  of the colonial project. And here of course I am talking to the administrative and authoritarian strands of the discipline, whose work I might add, dominates the construction  of crime control legislation, policy and practice in the Australasian context.

And because those strands dominate the policy process, talk of dismantling, of the abolition of criminology, is simply wasteful; it isn’t gunna happen. In fact, I will make a prediction as I head quickly towards retirement: in the not-too-distant future, as neo-liberal governments put the squeeze on ‘critical scholarship’ in terms of fthe withdrawal of funding and policy support, preferring ‘job ready pedagogy over critical thinking’, it will be us, the so-called radicals, who will eventually be dismantled and abolished within academic criminology through actions by Universities with a firm eye on their bottom line.

Now, ask me that same question from a critical Indigenous standpoint, is the discipline broken and should it be burned to the ground', and the answer is absolutely! 

Those of us in the know about what’s been going on within ANZSOC for decades with regards Indigenous issues, have known this action has been needed for a long time. Which is why so few of us attend the organisations annual conference,  or submit our research to its journal.

Almost a decade ago I wrote a chapter for a Palgrave handbook on Australasian criminology, edited by Antje and Rick Sarre, in which I described criminology as a tent that stank so bad of the stench of colonialism that it was best the Indigenous scholar group set up elsewhere.  Nothing has happened since then to convince me I was wrong, in fact, despite ANZSOC’s recent attempts at developing an Aboriginal strategy, the discipline’s treatment of Indigenous issues, communities and scholars continues along it historical trajectory of paternalism, condescension and colonialism. There are way too many examples to evidence that comment but let me refer to the online and offline abuse and hectoring of the likes of Amanda Porter and other Indigenous women scholars for daring to question the publication of a highly problematic work on Sudanese youth in the ANZSOC journal.

But probably my favourite example of how patronising and condescending the discipline can be towards Indigenous knowledge and scholars, we need only consider the evolution  of the latest criminological fad, Southern Criminology. One of its founding members, Kerry Carrington, has on a number of occasions, in keynote presentations, and in writing, claimed, without providing any evidence, that decolonising criminologies, such as Biko’s Counter-Colonial Criminology, or the sort of Indigenous criminology I do, are a) guilty of presenting all other criminologists as racist or on a ‘bandwagon’, and b) guilty of continuously romanticising the Indigenous life-world. 

As a result, Carrington claims that our criminologies are example of what she calls ‘negative decolonising projects’.  That’s right, because we Indigenous scholars call out Kerry and others for their dubius scholarship, such as claiming all-women police stations will be good for Aboriginal women without a) actually talking extensively to Aboriginal women, and b) without any consideration of policing as a colonial project, it is we who apparently are being ‘negative’. Such claims are, at best, unevidenced nonsense. 

And on that issue I want to draw your attention to another reason why our trust in whitestream criminology is so low: Some of those involved in the development of this Southern Criminology are sitting in this room, so let me direct this question at you and your colleagues. Why is it that some of your colleagues have been making these unevidenced, inflammatory statements about Indigenous and other decolonising criminologies for years, and I have yet to hear or read anything from the supposed demi-Gods of this movement who supposedly are all about ‘democratising’ criminological knowledge and committed to social justice on these claims. Why haven’t any of you called them out?  Silence is complicity, is it not?

And so on to my last point: For the last five years or so I’ve been focused mostly on what I and other Indigenous scholars call our ‘decolonial project’, throughout which I have been looking for ways to directly influence decolonisation work within criminology.  Unfortunately, recent events have stymied my plans to do this work WITHIN the Academy, and brought me back full circle to the question I posed in the ANZSOC book chapter I alluded to earlier: some tents you just don’t want to be sitting in. I think that the discipline, along with the institutions it is situated within, are mostly interested in decolonisation like they were about 'indigenisation' in the 1990s, as a way of making token gestures that mask their reluctance to institute any real, meaningful, systemic change and support Indigenous self-determination.

And so, I will leave you with this little gem: I think it best that we as Indigenous scholars, and there is now a fairly sizable group of us here in Australasia who think this way, should continue on the journey to developing our own representative body. After all, we don’t need you (ANZSOC, criminology as a whole): not your conferences, not your journals, because we have our own. We should leave the discipline of criminology to ‘decolonise’ itself as it sees fit. And I ask you all to contemplate this question: think of one reason, one solid reason why we as Indigenous scholars should waste our emotional and intellectual energy on helping you to decolonise?  

To paraphrase the well-known Maori film director Taiki Waititi, when he was recently asked to speak to a group about how best to decolonise Hollywood: “You fu*ked it, you fix it.”

 

 

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

Kia ora all

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

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

Publication of the First Edition of Decolonization of Criminology and Justice

Hi all

Please find here a link to the first publication of the journal Decolonization of Criminology and Justice, edited by Antje Deckert (AUT University, Auckland) and myself.  Please read, share and just as importantly, submit work for consideration!

https://ojs.aut.ac.nz/dcj/index.php/DCJ

Can the Restorative Justice Industry be Relevant to Indigenous Peoples?

The following commentary is made in response to the recent restorative justice symposium held in Wellington, New Zealand on 24-25 October 2018:

As an Indigenous scholar, I hold little hope that the Restorative Justice (RJ) industry will one day prove itself to be of significant value to Indigenous peoples. My pessimism is based on my observations and experiences of the way members of the industry go about their work. Especially problematic is the fact that the consistent use of elements of the Indigenous life-world by RJ advocates cannot be considered an unintended consequence of the marketing activities of the industry. The marketing of RJ products is underpinned far too often by the reiteration of unsupported myths designed to demonstrate the ‘indigenousness’ of what is ostensibly a white, middle class dominated and controlled crime control business, for this to be considered as anything other than the purposeful employment of Indigenous knowledge and practice for the advantage of the industry (Cunneen, 2008; Tauri, 2014). And so, RJ advocates continuing to bastardise Indigenous philosophies and socio-cultural practices, and to mislead the ‘market’ about the ‘Indigeneity’ of their products. This activity continues despite a decade or more of sustained Indigenous, and non-Indigenous critique of this behaviour (for example, see Blagg, 1997; 2008; Cunneen, 1998; 2008; Love, 2002; Tauri, 1998 2004, to name but a few).  To date, there has been little response to this critique. Indeed, I would suggest that the situation is worse than that: it appears the more we point out the unethical conduct of members of the RJ movement with regards Indigenous peoples, the more our views are ignored.  So, why the lack of response to the Indigenous critique? Why do members of the RJ industry continue to co-opt elements of Indigenous life-worlds, and continue to exaggerate the indigenous foundations of both their movement and some of its key products? These questions provide the basis for an interesting and informative research project. Until that is done we can only speculate, as I will attempt to do to do here.

It is now well established that members of the RJ ‘community’ aggressively marketed their RJ wares, most especially derivatives of New Zealand’s FGC forum, on the increasingly globalised crime control market (Tauri, 2016). It has further been established that the marketing was most aggressive in those settler colonial contexts suffering from the dual wicked problems of Indigenous over-representation and the radicalisation of Indigenous political activity (Tauri, 2014). This should come as no surprise to anyone who has engaged with the RJ lexicon that exploded from 1990 to the late 2000s. Much of this material contained oft-repeated claims of the indigenous foundations of RJ policies and philosophies and forums imbued with the ancient teachings and practises of Indigenous peoples (Richards, 2007). That the RJ movement is now accepted as a legitimate player on the globalised crime control market, and treated by the settler colonial states as a viable partner in its continued domination of crime control, owes much to the development and marketing of the industry’s supposedly ‘Indigenous products’. In part this may explain why so many RJ advocates, in particularly those responsible for bastardising Indigenous peoples’ philosophies and justice processes, remain silent in the face of increasing critique of their practice. And why would they not choose to remain so? For right now they have the support of the state to design, implement and ‘evaluate’ their products.  In return, and to ensure their products are ‘marketable’ to the biggest funder of crime control, they modify them, continually designing out or softening the restorative ‘bits’ in order to make them more palatable to the tough on crime stance that dominates governmental response to social harm in most Western jurisdictions (Roach, 2012; Rudin, 2005; Suzuki and Wood, 2017; Tauri, 2009). In a policy environment like this, what is a little bit of noise from a small group of stroppy coloured folk, when the Industry has been accepted into the governmental fold, and is eligible to receive taxpayers’ monies?  After all, they know better than us what our communities need, right? 

Wrong. From a critical Indigenous perspective the response to the deceit, the myth-making and condescension of the RJ industry towards us is obvious: if you continue to use our philosophies and practises without our input and consent; if you continue to use ‘our stuff’ to line your own pockets and to further your careers without respectful engagement with us; if you continue to exaggerate the ‘Indigenousness’ of your products, and ignore our critique of your conduct, then you are a hypocrite who is not living up to so-called principles of the restorative justice movement to which you belong. You will also do serious damage to the movement itself in being able to work to achieve the transformative potential its members claim it is capable of. But perhaps just as important to a movement founded on social justice principles and aims, you will soon cease to be of any consequence to one of the most disaffected, disenfranchised communities residing in the settler colonial context.

This commentary was formulated to inject an Indigenous perspective into one of the key ‘contested areas’ of RJ-related analysis, namely its value to marginalised communities residing in western jurisdictions. It has also been designed to yet again offer an empirically-informed perspective on what I consider to be one of the significant ‘grey areas’ of RJ theorising, policy formulation and practice, namely the Indigenous experience of all this activity.  I say ‘yet again’ because while it has been written with these key aims in mind, it was also written with another purpose in mind - to cajole, to embarrass, to prompt RJ advocates and practitioners to respond to the Indigenous critique of RJ. In truth, the ‘debate’ about the value of RJ to Indigenous peoples is not a contested area at all, because as stated earlier the majority of theoreticians, advocates and practitioners have thus far ignored the Indigenous critique. For there to be a ‘contest’ there would actually have to be a debate, and so far the only debate that appears to taking place is between like-minded, RJ advocates who are conveniently ignoring the Indigenous experience.

By comparison, it is more accurate to say that the impact that RJ is having on Indigenous communities is indeed a ‘grey area’ of practice.Despite this, advocates continue to make claims about RJ programmes, like the FGC and other conferencing formats, being ‘capable of meeting the needs of Indigenous peoples’ because of a magical alignment between these formulations and our ‘ways of doing justice’. Indigenous-led research by the likes of Moyle (2013; 2014), Victor (2007) and others, inserts an empirically-informed edge to our critique, and also acts as a thinly veiled challenge to the RJ to up its game when making claims about the ‘added value’ of its activities for our communities.

I have from time-to-time been asked if RJ offers anything of value to Indigenous peoples, if we ‘want’ it, if it can play a meaningful part in how Indigenous communities respond to social harm that occurs in our communities. I usually answer these questions with a two part response, the first being direct and to-the-point, which is that it is hard to formulate a response because there has been very little RJ ‘delivered’ in Indigenous communities across all settler colonial contexts. Most of what passes for RJ programmes experienced by Indigenous peoples are state-controlled standardised criminal justice interventions where the RJ elements have been exaggerated to create the illusion of communitarianism. And secondly, I answer by saying that rather than having to identify a position on the validity of the use of RJ by or in Indigenous communities, it is for RJ advocates and practitioners’ to demonstrate why their policies and programmes should be implemented in lieu of our own responses to social harm.  

For the  RJ movement to become relevant to us it needs to 1) stop mythologising its own history, 2) enhancing the mythologising by exaggerating its linkages to Indigenous life worlds, 3) stop using elements of our life-worlds to market their products, without our permission, 4) engage with our scholarship, with our perspectives,  instead of relying on the perspectives of non-Indigenous academics and advocates, and finally, 5) show us some respect by actually respond meaningfully to our critique of the industry, its products and the activities of its practitioners.  These things I believe are necessary for the movement to demonstrate that it can be a critical ally, one that supports our drive for self-determination in the realm of justice. 

References

Blagg, H., 1997. A just measure of shame?  Aboriginal youth and conferencing in Australia, British Journal of Criminology, 37(4), pp. 481-501.

Blagg, H., 2008. Crime, aboriginality and the decolonisation of justice. Sydney: Hawkins Press. 

Cunneen, C., 1997. Community conferencing and the fiction of Indigenous control, Australian New Zealand Journal of Criminology, 30, pp. 292-311.

Cunneen, C., 2008. Indigenous anger and the criminogenic effects of the criminal justice system.  In A. Day; M. Nakata and K. Howells eds. Anger and Indigenous men. Leichhardt: Federation Press, pp. 37-46.  

Love, C., 2002. Maori perspectives on colloboration and colonisation in contemporary Aotearoa/New Zealand child and family welfare policies and practices. Paper presented at the Policy and Partnerships Conference, Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo, June. 

Moyle, P., 2013. From family group conferencing tp whanau ora: Maori social workers talk about their experiences, unpublished Master's thesis, Massey University. 

Moyle, P., 2014. Maori social workers’ experiences of care and protection: A selection of findings, Te Komako, Social Work Review, 26(1), pp. 5-64.

Richards, K., 2007. 'Rewriting history': Towards a genealogy of 'restorative justice', unpublished PhD thesis, University of Western Sydney. 

Roach, K., 2012. The institutionalisation of restorative Justice in Canada: Effective reform or limited and limiting add-on? In I. Aertsen., T. Deams., and L. Robert, ed. Institutionalising Restorative Justice. New York: Routledge, pp. 167-193. 

Rudin, J., 2005. Aboriginal justice and restorative justice.  In E. Elliot and R. Gordon eds. New directions in restorative justice: Issues, practice,evaluation. Devon: Willan Publishing, pp. 89-114. 

Suzuki, M., and Wood, W., 2017. Co-option, coercion and compromise: Restorative justice in Victoria, Australia, Contemporary Justice Review, 20(2), pp. 274-292. 

Tauri, J., 1998. Family group conferences: A case study of the indigenisation of New Zealand’s justice system, Current Issues in Criminal Justice, 10(2), pp. 168-182.

Tauri, J., 2004. Conferencing, indigenisation and orientalism: A critical commentary on recent state responses to Indigenous offending. Paper presented at The Qwi: Qwelstom Gathering: ‘Bringing Justice Back to the People’, Mission, British Columbia, 22-24 March. 

Tauri J., 2009. An Indigenous commentary on the standardisation of restorative justice, Indigenous Policy Journal, 20(3), online. 

Tauri, J., 2014. Settler-colonialism, criminal justice and Indigenous peoples, African Journal of Criminology and Justice Studies, 8(1), pp. 20-37.

Tauri, J., 2016. The state, the academy and Indigenous justice: A counter-colonial critique,  unpublished PhD thesis, University of Wollongong. 

Victor, W., 2007. Indigenous justice: Clearing space and place for Indigenous epistemologies. Ottawa: National Centre for First Nations Governance.  

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.

 

Juan Tauri - Presentation to the 2016 FIRE Symposium on Indigenous Justice

The following blog contains a video - a presentation by Juan Tauri (University of Wollongong) at the Forum for Indigenous Research Excellence symposium Decolonising Criminal Justice: Indigenous Perspectives on Social Harm, held at the University of Wollongong 24-25 November 2016.


The title of the presentation is: The Master's Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master's House: An Indigenous Critique of Criminology.  

Associate Professor Thalia Anthony and Professor Juanita Sherwood: presentation to the 2016 FIRE Symposium

The following blog contains a video - a presentation by Associate Professor Thalia Anthony (UTS) and Professor Juanita Sherwood (University of Sydney) at the Forum for Indigenous Research Excellence symposium Decolonising Criminal Justice: Indigenous Perspectives on Social Harm, held at the University of Wollongong 24-25 November 2016.


The title of the presentation  is: A Decolonising Critique of the Disciplining and Disciplinary Inwardness of Criminology.

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.