Publication of the Special Edition - Indigenous Perspectives and Counter-Colonial Criminologies

Hi all

The long-awaited special edition on Indigenous Perspectives and Counter-Colonial Criminologies has now been published in the African Journal of Criminology and Justice Studies.

The edition includes papers on issues of significance for Indigenous peoples from 

Professor Biko Agozino

Dr Tamari Kitossa

Juan Tauri

Dr Antje Deckert

Professor Andrea Smith

Professor Harry Blagg

Dr Thalia Anthony

Joey Lwart

The journal is free access and can be found via the following web page.

http://www.umes.edu/ajcjs/default.aspx?id=50660

A big thanks to Professor Agozino and the editorial staff of the journal for supporting our work.  Antje Deckert and I appreciate all the support we received in bringing this project to a successful conclusion.  There is a possibility that two further papers will be added to the edition, most likely in the New Year - we will keep you posted if/when this happens.

Heio ano

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. 

Is New Zealand's Policy Sector 'Evidence-Based'? Part 1

A Story of Deceit and Manipulation

In the early 2000s I made a career decision that appeared at the time to be a monumental failure; I decided to leave the relative safety of Te Puni Kokiri (New Zealand's Ministry of Maori Development (see footnote)  to take a position at the Department of Corrections.

Within about 2 years I realised that the move had been highly beneficial to my development as a critic of crime control policy.  I lasted all of 6 months before deciding to return to Te Puni Kokiri; not a long time to work in a policy position, but enough to provide me with some invaluable insights into the workings of the criminal justice policy sector. What follows are some of the insights I learnt during my short 'sentence' at Corrections, many of which hold true for all crime control agencies in New Zealand:

The worst way to run a government agency

... was the 'model' used at Corrections at the time, which was to set the General Managers of the various sections (Policy, Community Corrections, Psych Services, Public Prisons, etc) against each other so they competed for the agency's limited resources, and for the attention of the CEO.  The rationale behind this management style seemed to be the belief that the ensuing competition would result in enhanced quality of output.... which showed the genius who implemented this style knew little about human nature. The situation this strategy engendered at Corrections was frankly bizarre as time and again I observed supposedly adult, experienced public servants stabbing each other in the back, engaging in petty, immature turf wars and killing off well constructed projects in order to protect their own interests.  All of this experience was fantastic training..... for being a kindergarten teacher, but did little to engender collegiality or the development of effective penal policy (whatever that is).  To be fair to Corrections though, the management process in place at the time was simply a mirror image of the way in which the crime control sector engaged with each other, as I soon learnt during my involvement in inter-agency programmes such as Effective Interventions that began in the mid-2000s.

Iconoclast's will not be tolerated

Speaking 'against the grain' or taking the position of the devil's advocate was not acceptable.  When I arrived at Corrections the agency was in the process of implementing the Integrated Offender Management (IOM) initiative.  Imported more or less whole from Canada, IOM was intended to streamline the delivery of prison-based services to inmates to ensure their 'sentence plans' matched their 'criminogenic needs', such as anger management and alcohol and drug dependency.  In order to 'sell' the programme within and outside the agency, a whole tier of marketing practitioners were identified, called (and I am not making this up) 'IOM Champions'.  The key task of the 'Champions' was to market IOM, and one way they sought to do so was to hold information sessions with staff.  These sessions encouraged 'full and frank' discussion on the nature and impact of IOM, or so we were told. Before attending staff were assured they could ask critical questions or make critical statements, and that anything they said would be treated confidentially. 

In my first week on the job I attended one such session, during which my manager asked what I thought was an important question: 'how do we know IOM will work for Maori, when no engagement has been held with Maori - not with Maori members of staff, Maori service providers, and especially not Maori inmates/offenders'. The answer?  He didn't get one. The response?  The IOM 'Champion' reported him to the General Manger who proceeded to tear strips off him for daring to criticise IOM and thereby setting a bad example for his staff. Needless to say I decided after that not to attend any more sessions or to tell other staff what I actually thought of the policy.  

Science and evidence-based policy are not king

The rise of IOM coincided with a revolution within many of the crime control agencies wherein 'science' and 'evidence' became the basis of policy-making, the development of interventions, and allocation of resources.  At least that is what the policy sector told itself and the public.  Quite often this was not the case, with pertinent evidence being totally ignored, or the evidence that suits a predetermined policy outcome favoured over the messy stuff, you know.... the evidence contradicts a Cabinet Minister's pet project (see Tauri, 2009 for a discussion of this process).

A recent, classic example of policy implementation that ignored available evidence was the government's decision to introduce boot camps.  No firm evidence existed to indicate that this intervention would result in positive outcomes for youth, but it was implemented regardless. Why? Well, there are a number of reasons but in this particular case the answers are 'populist politics' and 'ideology': to understand how such a poorly performing crime control intervention could be introduced, you have to ignore the rhetoric that New Zealand's policy sector is apolitical (as in neutral) and that policy decisions are always based on scientifically-derived evidence.  This is often not the case in the crime control sector. The introduction of boot camps was purely ideological... of the 'get tough on crime and bring back military-style discipline for those young thugs' type you will often hear in RSA bars; the 'a good thrashing never did me any harm' approach to social policy. 

I wish to be clear about one thing - sometimes evidence has a significant impact on policy development and implementation.  My argument here is sometimes it does not.  The policy process can be, and often is, highly political and ideological, with interventions and policies influenced as much by who a Minister was drinking with last week, as it is on independent, empirical evidence.           

Ritual and myth are king

... and when empirical evidence is NOT highly influential in policy making, I observed that other strategies came to the fore, including the liberal use of ritual to maintain the sacred myths of the public service, namely the myth of political neutrality and the myth of evidence-based policy.  In Part 2 I will focus on the rituals utilised by the policy sector to sustain these myths, including the rituals of (in)activity, rituals of deception and cherry-picking rituals; watch this space (in the meantime see Tauri, 2014).

Postscript - When is an Academic Journal NOT an Academic Journal?

The answer? When it is set up and run by a government agency.  

Mildly related to the previous discussion was an announcement made in 2013 of the publication of a new academic journal called Practice: The New Zealand Corrections Journal.  I thought 'excellent, finally the New Zealand academy is getting off its butt and doing something to enhance critical crime control scholarship in this country'..... sadly I was wrong on all counts.

  

No doubt we've all heard the saying 'if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, then it must be a duck'? Well the Department of Corrections 'journal' defies that lovely bit of logic. It 'looks' like a journal and when you hold it in your hot hands if even 'feels' like a journal, but sadly it quacks like an ACT Party candidate talking about being 'tough on crime' during an Epsom constituency meeting.  

Let me be clear on one thing, government agencies have every right to publicise their work; in fact they have an obligation to do so. We as taxpayers have a right to know how they are spending our money... just don't expect them to tell you if it is not effective as that pertinent point is usually ignored completely.  They have a right to publish the material in whatever form their over-priced 'marketing' experts tell them will most effectively spread the gospel.

However, they do not have the right to treat us as if we are stupid, and in marketing their rag as a 'journal' that is exactly what Corrections is doing.  However, I do have to take my hat off to the department, the 'journal' represents a wonderful piece of conjuring worthy of a Las Vegas magic show: take the marketing, publicity and policy materials produced by the agency and its 'academic' friends (meaning those academics who produce work in line with the ideological and theoretical position of the agency) and publish it in journal form.  So far, this is exactly what we are being served up by Corrections.  The vast majority of the articles are written by Corrections functionaries, and few of the articles engage with critical questions being posited by independent academics or report on research using methodologies that allow the voices of those most impacted by corrections policies to be heard.  And most importantly, the editorship, and therefore the article selection process, is overseen by a high level functionary within Correction; hardly a recipe for ensuring that independent, critical scholarship will make the pages of the 'journal'.

It is easy to figure out why the agency has gone down this route: through the 'journal' it is seeking to give its marketing material more of an 'academic' look and feel in order, hopefully, to enhance its credibility on the intellectual market.  But one word of advice to the editor: you will be judged primarily on the content of the articles you publish and hardly at all on whether the 'look' of your magazine matches closely with academic journals such as Punishment or Criminology.

I think the idea of an academic journal like Practice is a good one.  In fact, given the paucity of academic scholarship on crime control in New Zealand I would like to see its name and focus changed to Criminal Justice or something similar.  But having done that you will need to make it more independent.  So why not turn it into a joint venture by running it through an editorial board made up of both academics and policy workers, with two Chief Editors, one from policy and one independent to ensure it doesn't become a mouth piece for your agency.  Or you could align it with an academic institution that has a criminology focus, such as AUT, University of Auckland, Victoria University or the University of Canterbury. It would also be a good idea to mix the content; a few articles from the policy sector, a few from independent researchers.  Then, and maybe then, you can call your magazine a 'journal'. However, in order to achieve all this you need to change your attitude to independent research... you need to allow it to occur.  

Oh, I know you will be able to cite a few examples since 2001 where you allowed PhD students or other researchers 'in' to prisons to do research... research that is likely contracted by the agency or heavily vetted to ensure it serves the needs of the agency, and is unlikely to result in critical findings that might embarrass Corrections, or worse, its Minister. I am talking about the strategy that Corrections appears to be following the past few years of blocking critical research that does not suit the agency's needs.  And it is blocking independent researchers from going about their business, by using excuses like 'the information that will be gathered doesn't match with our trending data' or with 'our strategic priorities', or some similar nonsense.  And if that fails Corrections can fall back on well-worn excuses such as potential 'safety' issues for both inmates and researchers, or muster issues or whatever else they can think of.  And yet other jurisdictions, most notably the United Kingdom, has in the past had few issues with allowing researchers to enter prisons to carry out their work.  The evidence for this is the significant amount (comparatively speaking) of independent research materials published in academic journals on prisons and corrections policies in that and other comparable jurisdictions.  The problem in the New Zealand context seems to created from the intersection,a dangerous combination, of three factors: 1) a policy elite who appear to believe themselves above critique, 2) a policy elite who believe they are not answerable to the public, and 3) who are supported by a political elite who share the same arrogance and aversion to independent scrutiny.  

Let me be even more frank, policy workers and government agencies do not always have the answers and, more importantly because they are so close to their own work they often can't see the wood for the trees.  In other words it is sometimes very difficult for them to step back and critically analysis the impact or their work or identify the questions that need to be asked and answered by research. Sometimes the questions and topics 'the community', which includes independent researchers, inmates, ex-inmates, inmates and ex-inmates families and service providers, believes are important will not match those of the policy sector; and sometimes the communities questions are the right ones to be asking. Remember, a government agency is part of the public service and derives its resources from the public purse.  Therefore, it is time for policy practitioners to stop acting as though they are not answerable to the public.

Oh, and it would be a good idea if they stopped treating us as though we are stupid: Corrections, change the name of your publication to The Corrections Quarterly or perhaps even more suitable, CQ, or something similar that reflects that it is in fact a magazine, because we are not being fooled in the slightest.    

Footnote
I have often thought that the Ministry of Maori Development (emphasis on the 'development' bit) was a weird name for an agency with a budget at that time of around 23 million, and that was often severely hamstrung by Cabinet and core agencies such as Treasury, SSC, Ministry of Social Development, etc, those with comparatively massive budgets and significantly more political capital, from actually doing anything concrete to facilitate 'Maori development'.

References
Tauri, J (2009) The Maori Social Science Academy and Evidence-Based Policy, MAI Review, 1: 1-11. 
Tauri, J (2014) Ritual and the Social Dynamics of Policy Making in New Zealand, in P.Howland (ed.) Ritual in Aotearoa New Zealand: An Effusive Introduction (forthcoming - draft available on Academia).  

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Love and hugs