University of Waikato Tauranga Public Lecture Series

Part 2 - Reducing Our Prison Population

Gangs and the Politics of Crime Control Policy in New Zealand

A while back I wrote a couple of blogs that contained commentary on the short-sightedness and the condescension that underpins the crime control policy sector in New Zealand when it comes to gangs and development 'effective interventions' (see A Commentary on the Stage Management of Policy Consultation and Policy Development, and Is New Zealand's Policy Sector Evidence-Based, Part 2). Recent events in New Zealand show that another discussion on this issue is necessary. So here goes, and my apologies for repeating some of the points included in the previous blogs:

The Minister of Corrections, gangs and rehabilitation

Recently, the Minister of Corrections in the New Zealand government, Judith Collins, called for a particular individual, Ngapari Nui, to be removed from his position as Kaiwhakamana, a volunteer position through which he worked with inmates in Whanganui prison to assist them to prepare for life outside prisons walls.  Mr Nui had been functioning in this role for five years.

Before I begin my critique on the recent behaviour of Ms Collins, and the Chief Executive of Corrections, Ray Smith, it is worthwhile revisiting a statement I made about the policy response to gangs in a previous blog:

"I have exposed that an unwritten rule of government agencies in New Zealand is that they 'don't work with gangs', which also means that officials cannot be seen to engage with gang members. Of course this rule is unwritten, and its application is, as always, contingent upon specific events and the attitudes of individual government officials. For example, the late, former Prime Minister Robert Muldoon was well known for his willingness to engage with gang leaders, and indeed supported the development and implementation of labour schemes for gangs. Similarly, the ex-Minister of Maori Affairs, Pita Sharples was not shy about engaging with gangs, or attending community forums where it was known they would be attending. And of course Te Puni Kokiri, as the lead government adviser on Maori issues, would also seek to engage with gangs to inform the development of social policy; although I wonder how long this enlightened approach to policy development will last at the Ministry now that Harry Tam no longer works there... my guess is, not long. During my time at the Ministry it became increasingly obvious that most of its tertiary educated, middle class Maori analysts had much more in common with their white counterparts at Treasury than they did with working class Maori, and were no more willing to, or better at, engaging with 'hard to reach' communities like gangs or youth offenders. And so, as a general rule Ministers of the Crown and government officials avoid engaging with gang members at all costs, even when, in the case of Ministry of Social Development officials, they are actually tasked with developing and implementing a 'gang strategy'!"

Ms Collins recent behaviour directly mirrors the conduct of the policy sector described above, and the core principle that forms the basis of it; that meaningful engagement with gangs to inform policy is a no no.  The same goes for Ray Smith, Chief Executive of Corrections, behaviour as he moves to support and implement the directives of his minister.


I agree with Harry Tam's recent statement that after being dropped from Cabinet for questionable behaviour, Collins is using the 'ban the gangs' rhetoric and related behaviour such as having gang affiliated individuals removed from volunteer positions in prisons to 'prove' herself again; to show how tough she is. In my view she is doing so at the expense of the delivery of meaningful support for inmates.

In fact, I contend that the Minister's recent, frothy exhortation that the only place for gang members in prisons is as inmates underlines the key argument I made in the blog mentioned above, that the claims of Corrections and other crime control policy shops in New Zealand to be 'evidence-based' is often a load of bullshit. Both the Minister's and the Chief Executive's conduct underlines the political, subjective, rhetorical foundations of the crime control policy sector in New Zealand. And it is important for us to recognise that this is the basis of crime control policy, especially if we are  interested in formulating nuanced understandings of why this particular policy sector does such a shite job at developing and implementing meaningful policies and interventions. For example, it is worth asking why the Department of Corrections can't get close to its stated aims of reducing reoffending rates amongst its 'clients' (10% when IOM was first introduced back in the 2000s, updated more recently to 20% plus... how's that going so far Ms Collins, Ray Smith?  Not even close, eh?). One reason might just possibly be a total disconnect on the part of the Minister, the Chief Executive and the policy arm of the department, from the individuals, whanau and communities they supposedly serve.

And Finally, A Disclosure
Readers should be aware when reading this blog that:

1. I currently have cousins who are members of the Mongrel Mob, and one of my uncles was once a member of the Black Power.

2. I worked for 2 years with a man who is a life-member of the Mongrel Mob, and

3. In my capacity as a policy analyst from 1999-2009 from time-to-time I engaged with gang members while working on projects.

Under the rather 'fluid' definitions of gang member' and 'gang associate' employed by the crime control sector in New Zealand, these 'facts' will come in handy when they contemplate how to respond to this blog (if they contemplate it at all, of course!). If they decided to respond, the tactics will likely be similar to those recently used by NZ Police to block researcher Jarrod Gilbert from carrying out research, by designating me as either a 'gang associate' or as having 'known gang associations', thereby rendering my stance, my comments 'questionable'.

You see, this is how things work in New Zealand's crime control sector: gangs and gang members are the bogie man/woman par excellence. You need to divert attention away from your agency's or your government's crap social policy performance?  Easy. Manufacture a moral panic about youth gang violence as government, police, policy makers and media did in the mid 2000s. Want to block someone from doing critical, independent research? Easy: make exaggerated claims of 'gang association or affiliation' as NZ Police did recently in order to stifle the work of criminologist and social researcher Jarrod Gilbert. Need to appear tough to your colleagues, the media  and uninformed, bigoted, dumbass voters? Not a problem: simply force the removal of men like Ngapari Nui from doing work that you, your advisors and your policy workers could not do, such as work with gang members and inmates to help turn them away from crime and prepare them for reintegration back into the community. Because Ms Collin's, the arrogance, the condescension, and the lack of policy smarts behind your comment that the only place in prisons for gang members is as inmates, is exposed by the very fact that at some point these same gang members will be (drum roll inserted here).... released!

As both Harry Tam and Edge Te Whaiti recently stated on national television in New Zealand, the reason why it is important to enable Ngapari Nui and others like him to work with gang members and other inmates, is because it is much easier for them to do so due to their social and familial affiliations and their knowledge and experience of the gang lifestyle. Based on my experience working in the policy sector, it is nigh-on impossible for the likes of Collins, Ray Smith or any of the crime control policy people currently sitting in cafes on Lambton Quay, Wellington to do the work that Harry, Edge and Ngapari choose to do (and with the ignorance and bias that many of the policy sector hold for Maori, offenders and gangs, nor would you want them to be doing that work).

Few of them would have the first clue how to engage with gang members or their whanau; a fact evident in the woeful standard of policy development across the entire New Zealand crime control sector. Even the most superficial reading of major policy projects undertaken since the late 1990s, such as RObM (Reoffending by Maori), The Crime Reduction Strategy, Effective Interventions and so on, quickly reveals the lack of capability the sector has for engaging meaningfully with 'communities of concern', like gangs, offenders, victims, service providers, Maori per se, etc, etc. 

And so, Ms Collin's and Mr Smith, how about you set aside your uninformed, ideologically-driven, unevidenced, prejudicial response to gangs and the people associated with them, and allow men like Ngapari Nui to get on with the job of helping inmates turn their lives around. How about putting aside your need to score meaningless political points, or to secure your fat yearly bonus, and work to develop effective responses to the significant issues facing our communities. What do you think... time for a mature policy response to gangs in New Zealand? That would be great, but given the current crop of politicians and senior public servants in New Zealand, I won't hold my breath.

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.

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

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

Introduction

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

                                                                                Bourdieu and Wacqaunt (1999: 42).

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

The Aims of ‘A Gift to the World’

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

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

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

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

FGC Advocacy and the Silencing of  the Critical Indigenous Perspective

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A Gift to the World?

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

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

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

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

References

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Second New Zealand Criminology Symposium - AUT University

Hi all

A reminder that AUT University is holding the 2nd New Zealand Criminology Symposium on Monday 9 February 2015.

For more information and to register go to the following link:

http://www.aut.ac.nz/study-at-aut/study-areas/social-sciences/events

Speakers include:

Associate Professor Tamari Kitossa - Brock University (Ontario)

Associate Professor Tracey McIntosh - Auckland University

Dr Tara McGee - Griffith University (Brisbane)

Dr Mike Ruguski - independent researcher (Wellington).

In a welcome departure from the norm for academic events the convenor, Dr Antje Deckert has invited people who work with/in communities and 'hard to reach' groups to talk about issues with crime control, including:

Harry Tam, Edge TeWhaiti and Michael Osborne, and

Holly Mortimore and Vicki Letele.

The speakers will cover a range of topics from obstacles to desistance from offending, strategies for engaging with 'hard to reach communities' such as gangs and their whanau (families), and effective responses to reducing crime. 

See you there.

Juan

A Comment on the Epistemic Violence of White Academic Privilege - Part 1

The following blog is part 1 of a two part entry which provides an overview of the strategies and techniques of neo-colonial, epistemic violence perpetrated by the Academy against Indigenous scholars and communities.  Part 2, which will be posted in December, will report on recent research by the author and his colleagues, on Indigenous scholars’ experiences of racism within academic institutions.

Introduction

Indigenous peoples in all Settler-Colonial societies experience a number of issues when confronting both the criminal justice system and the academic discipline of criminology, including:

That the imposition of a criminal justice system, modelled on existing and developing Western models, was key to advancing the colonising process, especially the control and eventual subjugation of Indigenous peoples.

That the criminal justice system itself plays a significant role in the over-representation of Indigenous peoples.

That the criminal justice system and its supporting discipline, criminology, respond to Indigenous justice philosophies, theories and practices by portraying them as primitive, myth-based, and, therefore, illegitimate.  Furthermore, the ‘system’ marginalises Indigenous knowledge by employing rhetorical devices that construct it as ‘traditional’ and therefore as the antithesis of the preferred ‘scientific’ approach.  Except that is, for beliefs, practices and rituals policy makers and criminologists deem to be ‘culturally acceptable’, such as sitting in a circle or saying an ancient pray.  In other words, elements of the Indigenous world are utilised for their ability to eroticise and legitimise the criminal justice system, and not so much for their ability to empower Indigenous peoples.

And, a major player in the processes of marginalisation previously described is the discipline of criminology, or more accurately a particularly virulent derivative I have referred to previously as Authoritarian Criminology. 

Authoritarian Criminology

The charge that Criminology was a major player in the colonising enterprise within Settler-Colonial societies and other colonial contexts has only recently been given serious attention from those working in the discipline, such as Biko Agozino and Chris Cunneen; although we must acknowledge the work of Franz Fanon and others in the 1950s onwards is point out the importance of the social-behavioural sciences (Psychology, Anthropology, Sociology), and even history, in the colonial enterprise. 

Authoritarian Criminology can be identified by the following core practices:

Research, publications generally focuses on the conceptualisation of crime (and its definition) and what constitutes legitimate enquiry, as defined by the state.

Practitioners confine their critical criminological gaze to issues relating to state-defined problem populations: more often than not the targets of their empirical enquiry are people of colour and working class youth; and too often the research is carried out with little or no direct engagement with individuals, organisations or communities from these population groups.

Confine their enquiries to problems and questions that the state deems important for which they receive remuneration via the establishment of contractual relations.

Limit their critical analysis of state systems and policies on programme effectiveness and evaluation largely devoid of historical context and wider political economy of the state’s dominance of justice in the neo-liberal moment.

Empower themselves through the veil of scientism, an ideological construct that privileges their approach to measuring the Indigenous life-world, whilst denigrating Indigenous (and other) forms of knowledge that seek to explain the social world from the perspective of the Other.

Utilise the process of myth construction and maintenance in a hegemonic exercise aimed at privileging its ‘way of knowing’ in the policy making process, over that of potential competitors.

Silence Indigenous academics (and our critical, non-Indigenous colleagues) by deploying well-worn, racist strategies such as focusing on our ‘emotional’ responses to unethical or racist conduct (more about these strategies in Part 2 of this entry). 

So, what needs to be done to combat the hegemony of Authoritarian Criminology in deciding what is/is valid knowledge and dominate policy-making, especially in the development of Indigenous policy; activities that can most accurately described as contemporary manifestations of colonialist, epistemic violence?

The Unfortunate Truth about Policy and the Academy

Before we begin to construct effective strategies for empowering ourselves, we must first acknowledge the following unpleasant truth about policy-making, policy makers and certain influential members of the academy: Neither the state (the policy makers) nor the predominantly white, middle class, privileged Western academy is simply going to stop what it is doing.  There is too much at stake for them to do so, including power, authority, prestige and, most especially of import to their institutions, grant monies, for them to voluntarily hand over the authority they have given themselves to speak for us, to the Indigenous Other and our critical, non-Indigenous collaborators.  The truth is we will have to break the hold they have on speaking about ‘our experience’, and fight them for the privilege of being able to directly influence the development of policy that impacts our communities. 

The importance of breaking this monopoly was brought home to me recently when I read two papers by non-Indigenous academics who had picked up government-funded research contracts on Indigenous issues, and then had to go and find out how to actually ‘do research’ with Indigenous peoples!  What?  You apply for a project for which you actually do not have the methodological know how or the cultural competency to carry out, and after you get the nod you then try to find out about ‘Aboriginals’?  As an experienced Indigenous academic, two questions immediately sprang to mind when I was confronted with these two examples:  a) why are government agencies giving contracts and grant monies to academics who demonstrably lack the requisite skills or knowledge to carry out emancipatory, empowering research with Indigenous peoples?  There are a number of ways we can explain this situation, but for now I’ll offer just two: i) because the government officials who make these decisions have just as little knowledge and experience of the Indigenous context so they go for academics who ‘look and act like them’; and/or ii) they go for the ‘safe option’, namely academics who will toe the line by only asking safe questions (meaning questions that will not elicit direct criticism of an  agency or their Minister) and who will stick to the institutional script.  And, what is for me the most important question, b) why are non-Indigenous academics without the requisite methodological and ‘cultural’ experience and knowledge applying for these grants? Is it ego, ignorance, or a combination of both?  I will finish on this issue by saying that I believe that one of the reasons why they feel they are able to apply for said grants when they clearly should not, is because for so long now they have been able to do so without being challenged by the Indigenous Academy.  Furthermore, it was/is possible for them to do so because we have historically done little to confront the government officials who handed the grant monies over to them to carry out their ‘Indigenous research’.

Breaking the Hegemony of Authoritarian Criminology

There are a number of ways we can respond in order to extract authority and respect from policy makers and the academy:

Continue to work ‘within the system’ (or systems) and provide meaningful support to the academy and the state to enhance Indigenous participation in their knowledge construction exercises, as some are doing already.  For example, in the New Zealand context we could use our Treaty settlement monies to fund scholarships so that we make our peoples more attractive to the academy and the public service.  However, 10 years of experience in the public service and numerous conversations with other Indigenous peoples working in the policy environment, informs me there are significant limitations involved in putting all our eggs in that particular basket. After all, the state is the entity thru which the immediate post-colonial and current neo-colonial disempowerment of Indigenous peoples is facilitated.  It (the Settler-Colonial state) is reluctant to treat us as human, as capable of looking after our own.  A recent case in point was the racist NTER policy implemented in Australia in the mid-2000s.  Continuing engagement and involvement with the policy sector is a legitimate and necessary approach, but much more is required.

Working within the academy by using the tools and methods of the academy to challenge the processes it utilises to achieve hegemony, with the added factor of engaging in research with Indigenous peoples, and not ‘on’ coloured people.  We must continue to develop our own counter-colonial theories and methodologies that challenge the legitimacy of the Academy’s tools and the exalted position its practitioners give themselves, too often on the backs of Indigenous peoples.  We must actively challenge the knowledge constructed about us, but rarely with us.  In other words, we must become or remain political (or, if you work in policy, ‘radical’); and much more aggressive (intellectually) towards the work of policy makers and members of the academy, especially Authoritarian Criminologists.

As I have hinted in an earlier blog, for every diplomat and peacemaker, we must have an academic warrior, someone who is part of a developing ‘Warrior Criminology’.  We cannot afford to be afraid of being called ‘aggressive’ or ‘emotional’, as we often are when we critique policy makers and academics and confront them directly for their racist behaviour and for the methodological shortcomings of their work.  In fact, our goal should be to embarrass them as much as possible: too often crap gets published about us about which little is said publicly.  Instead, we get annoyed and then moan at each other about some recent rubbish published in an ‘A journal’, but then bow to the silly conventions of the Eurocentric discipline that are built to protect its practitioners from any direct criticism of their shonky work, and most especially when they exhibit racist and unethical conduct. 

Recent examples of work about ‘us’ that deserved Indigenous censure included a 2008 report on Maori and crime by New Zealand’s Department of Corrections, and one on race and crime; both of which managed somehow to avoid any meaningful engagement with the critical Indigenous lexicon.  Can you imagine a journal article getting the green light if it focused on the contemporary development of restorative justice theory, but avoided the work of Howard Zehr,  John Braithwaite or one of the other founding ‘fathers’?  No?  Well, too often that is exactly what happens when non-Indigenous criminologists write about ‘us’: all of a sudden white man’s magic makes Indigenous scholarship disappear.  What this argument demonstrates is that we must become more active and strident in critiquing work that ignores Indigenous scholarship, or where the authors report on the Indigenous experience while avoiding engagement with Indigenous peoples.  We cannot allow the voice of the Institutional Other, the so-called ‘scientific criminologist’ – or as I prefer to call them, the Authoritarian Criminologist - to remain the dominant voice on the Indigenous experience because too often these authors are not telling Our Stories.  

Gangs, Restorative Justice and Policy

Attached is a video of a presentation I gave in Mission, British Columbia, Canada in December 2010; filmed by Heartspeak Productions.

Cheers

Juan

Crime Control Policy and the Demonisation of Indigenous Youth

The attached link is a video recording of my keynote address to the 1st Australasian Youth Justice conference, hosted by the Australian Institute of Criminology, in May of 2013.

Enjoy

Juan

Is New Zealand's Policy Sector 'Evidence Based'? Part 2

One of my favourite movies is Usual Suspects, released in 1995.  The film contains some memorable dialogue, but the one line that has stuck in my mind is probably the most often quoted: “the greatest trick the devil ever played was convincing the world he didn’t exist”.  This quote refers to the deceptive practices employed by the ‘Evil One’ to divert attention away from the role he/she plays in the madness and pain of everyday life.  A similar deceit frames the New Zealand’s Policy Industry’s on-going attempts to convince both the public and its political masters that it is politically neutral.  In my experience the Policy Industry in New Zealand is much more successful in this endeavour with the public, while most politicians are well aware of the politicised nature of the public service.

These comments are qualified, however, by acknowledging that many members of the public service, in particular those doing the technical work (let’s call them the ‘policy proletariat’) try hard to adhere to the public service code of conduct and the theoretical and practice bases of this thing we call evidence-based policy (EBP).  However, apart from the odd exception, in my experience policy-making is a fraught process which often requires its practitioners to compromise these core values on a regular basis.  Why?  Because in reality, contemporary policy making in New Zealand is not much different from the supposed bad old days of opinion-based policy that existed before the rise of EBP.  In fact I argue that the ‘Industry’ is no less ideological than it ever was, and it certainly is far from the objective, politically neutral beast its exponents claim it to be.

There are a number of ways we can evidence the argument that the Policy Industry is political: firstly, it is a given that a number of the public service are members of registered political parties.  Some keep their political affiliations to themselves; while others openly declare them as is encouraged under the Public Service Code of Conduct (PSCC) (State Services Commission, 2007).  The PCSS stipulates that while it is the right of all policy workers to affiliate politically they must be circumspect when carrying out duties on behalf of any political entity.  More significantly it is possible to also argue that the public service is wedded to the political system through the fact that officials and institutions are compelled to support the implementation of the policies of the Government of the day.  The myth of the political neutrality of the public service is built in part on the fact that the PSCC directs officials to give full and frank advice to government ministers.  What this should mean in practice is that if existing evidence does not support the policy directives from Cabinet and indeed may cause harm to the public, then it is the duty of public servants to advise Ministers’ of this fact.  However, in reality this rarely happens, especially in the crime control sector, and when it does it is often more about protecting the reputation and resources of the agency and their Ministers’, and less about protecting the public from ‘bad’ policy. 

The political nature of the Policy Industry is, however, much more insidious and far reaching than these benign examples demonstrate.  The Industry can be charged with being political and partisan (as opposed to neutral) via the fact that while directed by Cabinet and beholden to it, it holds extensive power over the development and implementation of policy itself.  If you live in Wellington, New Zealand and work in the Industry long enough, you will hear politicians and media (and sometimes, but rarely, policy workers) state that policy is not made or dictated by Cabinet, but is controlled by the policy mandarins in the small geographical triangle that takes in the parliamentary precinct, the Terrace and much of Lambton Quay.  This point is often made tongue-in-cheek, but my ten years of experience working in the Industry leads me to argue that it holds true in many cases. 

The myth of political neutrality masks a two of sub-surface truisms that are not easily observed by external audiences.  These are that i) part of the ‘art of politics’ and therefore of policy-making (which is the textual articulation of political theory/ideology) is a theoretical or conceptual framework for explaining the world and how it works; ii) while individual members of agencies will have their own ‘theory of the world’, agencies utilise specific theoretical paradigms that match their institutional view of how the world works, and form the ideological bases for policy development.  For example, neo-liberal economics has been the dominant political and economic theory/philosophy for the development of economic policy by New Zealand’s Treasury agency since the mid-1980s; the Psychology of Criminal Conduct is the dominant theoretical paradigm in the development of prison policy by the Department of Corrections from the mid-1990s (Department of Corrections, 2013); and a form of neo-tribal orthodoxy underpins policy making in the Ministry of Maori Development (2013); and iii) agencies employ various rituals and associated activities that either mask the theoretical underpinnings of their processes or validate them over others.

Case Study: the Organised Crime Strategy

To demonstrate the political nature of policy making and the myth of the primacy of evidence, we need look no further than the highly inflammatory issue of gangs and crime.  On 7 May 2007, a two year old girl was murdered in Wanganui, the victim of a gang-related drive-by-shooting.  Understandably the incident caused outrage amongst the wider public and politicians.  Through the media, public figures, such as the Mayor of Wanganui, Michael Laws, called for ‘something to be done’ about the perceived violence and general lawlessness of ethnic gangs in the region (Wanganui District Council, 2007).  The Government’s response was swift: just a few days after the incident, public service officials were called upon by Ministers to brief them on the issues and potentially effective policy options.  Up to that point the only meaningful, albeit largely ineffective policy initiatives in place were the Ministry of Social Development-led inter-agency project called the Plan of Action: Improving Outcomes for Young People in Counties Manukau (Ministry of Social Development, 2006) and a joint Ministry of Maori Development/New Zealand Police project which utilised established (adult gang) leaders to mediate directly with so-called youth gangs in an attempt to dampen down tensions and reduce the potential for further violent confrontation between these groups.  The reality was that over the preceding decade or more the crime control and social policy sectors had an unwritten rule of not working with gangs, meaning no funding for gang members to develop social programmes or support for activities that involved gang members or their associates (although there are exceptions to this rule, such as the Ministry of Maori Development/whanau ora funding for gang-focused social programmes, but these are very exceptions to the unwritten rule of non-engagement which must surely be in violation of the 'rules' of EBP). 

Officials’ response to requests from Ministers about how best to respond to the Wanganui incident, was to revive the then grossly overdue Organised Crime Strategy (OCS) (Ministry of Justice, 2002) that was initially part of the larger Crime Reduction Strategy signed off by the Labour government in May 2001.  The Strategy identified seven priority areas for the wider criminal justice sector, of which organised crime was designated Priority Area 5 (family violence and community violence and sexual violence were priority areas one and two).  By the time of the Wanganui gang shooting, priority area five was the least developed, and certainly any formal strategy was by then almost six years overdue.

Work began in earnest on resurrecting the OCS in mid-2007.  It involved some of the usual strategies, tactics and rituals officials utilise in order to be seen to be busy when potentially nasty coordination problems arise in the public sector: firstly, lead agencies were empowered (in this case, Ministry of Justice, followed closely by the New Zealand Police); other important players were identified (for example, DPMC, Ministry of Social Development, and to a lesser extent the Ministries of Maori Development and Pacific Island Affairs); an inter-agency group established; a schedule of meetings agreed, along with priority work items (background papers, briefings to Ministers, Cabinet papers, etc) and tasks identified and allocated.  Given the political capital inherent in the gang-related incident in Wanganui, work on developing the OCS was given priority by Government, and therefore by participating agencies.  The fact that the lead agencies had failed to deliver on the promised organised crime strategy for some two to three years was never discussed at formal meetings and overlooked in official documentation.  Regardless, this overdue strategic item provided agencies with a ready vehicle to be seen to respond meaningfully to what Cabinet clearly considered to be a politically-charged, perhaps even electorally damaging issue.

All of the above strategies and activities can be viewed, individually or collectively, as rituals of (in)activity.  In the event of a highly charged, political issue arising, agencies (individually or collectively) swing into ‘action’, utilising the well-established rituals of activity outlined above to serve as markers of responsiveness, concern for public safety and expertise.  The long overdue OCS became a vehicle through which officials and agencies could demonstrate their ability to respond quickly and efficiently.  Having no doubt briefed Minister(s) on the situation, including claiming that the Strategy was an appropriate and effective mechanism for responding to the Wanganui incident, officials then moved to deploy another set of rituals, referred to here as the rituals of deception.  This set of rituals is commonly used by criminal justice officials who need to retrofit policy to a social issue for which it is unsuited.

Retrofitting in the case of the OCS, refers to the fact that other policy mechanisms and strategies already existed through which to create meaningful policy; the original intent and focus of the proposed OCS did not correlate to the type of social issue that developed in Wanganui, and the lack of evidence that an OCS-style approach would demonstrably alter the social conditions which led to the Wanganui incident.  Rituals of deception are common in situations of policy retrofitting: they enable officials and agencies to mask the fact that their activities are more about managing potential coordination problems than about constructing meaningful ‘real world’ solutions.  The coordination problems that were the target of the OCS-related rituals of deception were masking a long-overdue piece of supposedly important strategic work, the historical lack of meaningful policy response to gang-related violence and gangs per se and the complete failure of the preferred suppression and surveillance policies since the mid-1980s to solve the so-called gang problem.  All of these coordination problems carry the potential to negatively impact institutional credibility with Cabinet and the public and inter-agency relationships. 

Why the deceit?

There are a number ways to explain and understand why supposedly neutral policy mandarins become involved in the politics of policy and utilise rituals of (in)activity and deception.  At base level it has to do with affinity and access: the higher up the managerial decision-making structure one gets, the closer you are to the political decision-making process and the politicians who ultimately make those decisions.  Accordingly, the more one has ready access to political authority the more one pays attention to the political consequences of policy design and implementation.  In other words, the higher up the management food chain you move, the less concerned with the technical development of policy you become, and the more you focus on what is referred to in Wellington as the ‘front page of the Dominion-Post test’: namely, how will a particular policy or policy issue look in the news media when it is released?  A further issue for consideration is what is the risk of negative media publicity to Cabinet and the policy sector?  In other words, senior managers can be viewed as political commissars who carry out the dual roles of educating the technocrats on the political expectations of Cabinet and the Ministry, and providing political risk assessment and protection services for Chief Executives, their agencies and Cabinet Ministers. 

Of course it can be countered that the argument I present here robs policy workers of their ‘agency’.  However this position presupposes that policy workers are empowered to carry out independent articulation of ‘free thought’ in the politically charged environment of a policy shop to begin with.  The authors experience was that this was rare and most definitely discouraged.  The reality of the policy environment and the position of the policy proletariat is effectively summarised by legal theorist Stanley Fish (1989: 141) who describes professional analysts not as free agents, but as "embedded practitioners" whose values, canons of evidence, normative measures and theoretical schema are proscribed by his or her professional community.  As a result, the potential for professional objectivity or political neutrality are, by definition, curtailed significantly by their personal, and their agencies proximity to, political power. 

The policy commissars and their direct line managers, who may be referred to collectively as the Policy Elite, also have the unenviable task of adhering to and implementing the policy platforms of incoming (newly elected) governments, along with new policy initiatives dreamt up by the current government.  This can be a nightmare at times, especially if the government’s policy goes against the majority or all of the available research evidence, as often occurs in the criminal justice sector (see below).  The case study of the OCS and policy response to the Wanganui incident highlights the myth of the political neutrality of the public service.  This example also underlines the role of ritual in masking the way(s) in which officials and agencies will bow to political and media pressure and construct policy responses ill-suited to the specific social issue that is dominating front page news at a particular time. 

References

Department of Corrections (2013) Annual Report 2012/13. Wellington: Department of Corrections.

Fish S (1989) Doing What Comes Naturally: Change, Rhetoric, and the Practice of Theory in Literary and Legal Studies. Durham and London: Duke University Press.

Ministry of Justice (2002) Crime Reduction Strategy. Wellington: Ministry of Justice

Ministry of Maori Development (2013) Measuring Performance and Effectiveness for Maori: Key Themes from the Literature. Wellington: Ministry of Maori Development.

Ministry of Social Development (2006) Plan of Action: Improving Outcomes for Young People in Counties Manukau.  Wellington: Ministry of Social Development. 

State Services Commission (2007) Public Service Code of Conduct.  Wellington: State Services Commission.

Wanganui District Council (2007) Toddler Death: A Sad, Appalling Tragedy.  Wanganui: Wanganui District Council.