Acknowledging the Past – Reimagining the Future

Address by Kim Workman Director, Rethinking Crime and Punishment At the Police Maori Leadership Conference “Achieving Strategic Excellence in Critical Times” Pipitea Marae, Wellington 10th November 2010

I want to thank Wally Haumaha for inviting me to speak speak at this Conference, “Achieving Strategic Excellence in Critical Times: the future lies in the present". The last time I spoke at a Conference, I was introduced as a “weapon of mass disruption.” I can only hope that Wally doesn’t live to regret the decision. The opportunity to talk about Crown – Maori relationships within the context of Policing and Criminal Justice, to talk about preventative strategies, about community crime prevention strategies and where we might head in the future, and how all that impacts on Maori, is too important an opportunity to speak with restraint – and it would be impossible for me to do so. I have been grappling with these issues for more than 50 years, and I want to take this opportunity to acknowledge the past, and re-imagine the future.

I was a member of the Police from 1958 until 1976, when due for promotion to Inspector, realised that a career in Police administration was not for me. But those early days forged some of the attitudes and beliefs I hold today.

Police relationships with Maori were problematic, even in those times. The same stereotypes that exist today, existed then. I recall encouraging a mate of mine, Trevor Clayton, to apply to join the Police. I was asked by Police HQ to complete a “special report” on Trevor, which asked questions like, “What colour is his house painted” , “Does he have any cars on his front lawn”, and “Does he speak a Maori lingo or proper English”. I refused to complete it, but I’m pleased to say that Trevor was accepted.

I spent four years in Masterton from 1965 until 1969, and there were three incidents that shaped my approach to policing. Born in Greytown, on returning home to the Wairarapa, I was immediately requisitioned into a local Kapahaka group, and we would practise and perform regularly. Practises were usually followed by a brief session at the Pioneer Hotel, the drinking spot for working families, and a place where the local crims hung out. After a few months, I received a formal memorandum from the Inspector, directing that I desist from my cultural activities, on the grounds that it was unseemly for a Police Officer to be seen publicly cavorting in a flax skirt. I thought hard about how to respond, and replied that I would be pleased to desist, once he had arranged the disestablishment of the Police Pipe Band. While nothing more was said, that memo cemented my place as an outsider within the Masterton police establishment, a town struggling to this very day with the evils of racism.

It was the same Inspector that lectured me on what Policing was all about. “The trouble with young cops today” he said, “Is that they have forgotten that the job of the Police is to enforce the law. You can only do that if people fear you. You can’t treat everyone the same. There are two classes of people in New Zealand - law abiding people and those that break the law. Any effort to help the law breakers, will be regarded as a sign of weakness by the Police, and respect will be lost.” I went home that evening and tried to line up his lecture with the Police Oath, which required us to discharge our duties “without favour or affection, malice or ill-will, until legally discharged; to see and cause Her Majesty's peace to be kept and preserved; to prevent to the best of my power all offences against the peace.” It seemed to me that the duty to enforce the law had as its higher aim, the preservation of peace. It follows that if we enforce the law in such a way that disrupts and destroys community peace, we violate the oath.

The following year, the two man CIB office suffered a severe staffing shortage – both personnel went on long term sickness leave, and I was offered the opportunity to become a one man CIB office. My sessions at the Pioneer paid off – friendships forged within the criminal world meant that after six months, there was a 43% increase in crime clearances. I learnt a valuable lesson; that within crime families, and within whanau living on the edge of poverty, were people who wanted a better life for themselves and their whanau, who were prepared to support proactive policing if it was done within a framework of engagement, of mutual trust and respect, There were only so many acts of theft, burglary, car theft and violence, that they were prepared to tolerate. Identify the pro-social actors, and policing became an entirely different proposition.

The third incident came as the result of developing closer relationships with the Maori whanau that lived on the Cameron block. Situated alongside the Block was the Masterton East Free Kindergarten – full of pakeha kids, but no Maori. Those Cameron Block whanau that had enquired about enrolling their children, were told there was a waiting list and the waiting list was closed. Being curious, I got one of the whanau to ring up the kindergarten and ask to enrol – sure enough the waiting list was closed. I then rang up, and in my best BBC voice enquired – and was told I could enrol my child the next day. So I turned up in the company of eight Maori mothers from the Block. Our ope of eight whanau briefly occupied the grounds, and I supervised their enrolment. I made the mistake of wearing my uniform, and I got into quite a bit of trouble. It was before the days of the Race Relations Act or the Human Rights Act. But I want to make this point. It seems to me that if we are serious about being effective Ambassadors of Peace, if we understand the Police role beyond that of law enforcement, then from time to time, we must exercise a moral authority which transcends the rational enforcement of the law. It is that moral dimension which sets us apart as guardians of community peace.

That happened in 1967, 45 years ago. People were bemoaning the loss of respect for the Police then, and offering the same ‘get tough’ solutions that they do today.

Pre-1980’s What am I describing here? Masterton has always had a reputation as a racist town – a Dompost article this week which describes the history of Makoura College, makes that clear. The Police history in Masterton also confirms that – in the 1980’s, tensions between the Police and Maori gangs resulted in Molotov cocktails being thrown into the homes of Policemen. Ministry of Justice reports on Maori overrepresentation in the criminal justice system confirms that. But I want to put to you that I am not talking about racism in a small New Zealand town. I am talking about racism in every small New Zealand, and every big one.

I’d like to at this stage, bring in another factor. One of the unpleasant facts that we have to contemplate, is that as a nation, we are more punitive than other comparative countries. The question thus arises; why have we historically been, and continue to be more punitive than other comparative countries? Criminologist John Pratt in his article “The Dark Side of Paradise” argues that friendliness and egalitarianism were very much a feature of early settler history. New Zealand society and culture also included other characteristics such as social cohesion, homogeneity, security and conformity and which cumulatively were instrumental in New Zealand regularly being described as a ‘paradise.’

Pratt points out that the desire to defend paradise led to a marked intolerance for those who threatened its social cohesion. Hence the ferocious anti-vagrancy and prostitution legislation that was passed in the 1870s. Our treatment of conscientious objectors was much more punitive and harsh than other commonwealth countries. Just as the strong central state was there to bolster stability and security, so it was also there to fervently police morals and conduct. Homogeneity was hallowed, diversity was discouraged. Outsiders were not welcome – dissent was frowned on – paradise must be preserved at all costs.

The Impact of Urbanisation Consider the impact of Maori urbanisation on a nation that valued conformity and homogeneity. As a young policeman I witnessed the impact of Maori urbanisation and the steady flow of Maori families into the cities from the 1950’s onwards. The Maori population changed from being 80% rural in 1940, to some 80% urban by 1986. An urban drift was world wide, due to changing labour demands, but for Maori, it was compounded by the loss of land. It was an inextricable drift , painful to witness. Maori whanau slipping through the inadequate caring networks provided by the state – strangers in the new world, disconnected from the old.

Sir Taihakurei Durie, describes the urbanization of Maori in this way:

They shifted from extended to nuclear families (government pepper-potting prevented Maori aggregations), from support networks to relative isolation, from family bonds to bonds with disaffected others, from a secure place in a community to a place that could be hostile to brown faces, from a place where one was a leader to a place where one worked for `the boss', from a place where community values were internalised to a place where all sanctions came from outside and were enforced by police

Most of all they shifted from a society that recognised mana, the spiritual element in individual dignity, to one that measured mana in material possessions.

Most survived the change and went on to do well, assisted by the Maori proclivity to work within a group. Some organisations, like the Ngati Poneke Club of Wellington, were formed as early as the 1930s.

Other Maori, perhaps the majority, lost contact with their traditional marae. On the marae, everyone has a role in which they can gain respect. Whatever the role - orator, knife-hand, priest, diver, cook or politician -there is the opportunity to excel. But for most offenders the contact has been lost, to their detriment and that of the tribe, and due to the ever-widening cultural gap, contact cannot be readily regained.

Prior to the 1950’s, Maori offending occurred at a similar rate to non-Maori. Between 1954 and 1958, the Maori youth offending rate rose by 50%. It occurs to me that one of the factors which caused an increase in crime, related not to how Maori behaved in this strange and new urban world – it had as much to do with how they were treated by non-Maori. John Pratt describes a mindset, which if applied to Maori urban migrants, would see them perceived as a threat to uniformity and homogeneity, and treated them as a potentially dangerous underclass. And that attitude continues today.

It was in the 1950s, during one of the Hastings Blossom Festivals, that a Magistrate branded a group of young Maori as worse than a pack of mongrels. Far from being ashamed, as one would have expected, they adopted the brand and the Mongrel Mob formed - the first of the Maori gangs.

The 1970’s saw the growth of the Mongrel Mob and Black Power, and also of Maori political activism in the form of Nga Tamatoa. In 1972, I was privileged to travel to Los Angeles, and live and work alongside Bill White, a black Probation Officer who was liaison officer with the Black Panthers and politically active black extremists. On my return, by then a Sergeant in charge of the Youth Aid Section in Wellington, I would spend three days a moth at Kohitere, a Social Welfare Institution which house 120 children, 80% of whom were Maori. I have been in prisons all over the world, and it takes a lot to scare me. But Kohitere did. The stench of fear, the incarceration of those children who misbehaved in isolation cells for up to three months, was inhumane and degrading. I talked with some of the Nga Tamatoa activists about it, and three of them; John Tahuparae, Ted Nia, and Tom Poata, would come with me and take the kids for kapahaka, and te reo. I was privileged to be part of the Pu Ao Te Atatu Ministerial Committee in 1984, which led to the de-institutionalisation of children, many of whom still bear the scars of that experience.

New Zealand led the way in the 1990’s by refusing to imprison children, other than in serious circumstances. The recent decision to change the law so that 13 and 14 year old children can be dealt with as criminals is a retrograde step, and international research guarantees that it will lead to an increase in adult offending. Today, eighty three percent of youth prisoners have a prior CYF record, and 69% of prisoners aged between 23 and A whopping 59% of Corrections clients have a CYF record. The state has started to reverse the kaupapa of Pu Ao Te Atatu by establishing youth justice secure facilities, and young offenders are being remanded in custody at an alarming rate. If you build the facilities, someone will fill them.

Today, while Maori are only 14% of the population, they account for 43% of convictions; 47% of violent offending convictions;3 and 51% of those in prison.4 They are over-represented in prison by 3.5 times.

The Market Reforms If we were a punitive nation before the 1980,s the market reforms that began around 1984 have had a longer term impact on public attitude to crime and offending. The restructuring of the public sector in the 1980’s facilitated the political formation of a more conservative political regime. There had been growing opposition to policies that appear to benefit the ‘undeserving poor’, cynicism about welfare, and support for more aggressive controls for an underclass that were perceived to be disorderly, drug-prone, violent and dangerous. There was more emphasis on responding to public clamor than reliance on the expertise of criminal justice professionals and empirical research.

New Zealand moved from being one of the most regulated to one of the more deregulated Western democracies. It has since become a much more heterogeneous and pluralistic society. Claims for wide ranging ethnic rights by Maori disrupted the prevailing view that New Zealand’s race relations were second to none. The price for plurality was a permanent degree of disjunction and social divergence, resulting in a coalescence of populist forces around crime and punishment issues, and the rise of penal populism. It manifested in a number of different ways.

In 2002, legislation confirmed a range of measures which extended prisoners sentences and restricted parole. The prison population has increased by 53.5% in the last ten years. Let’s be clear. New Zealand’s increasing imprisonment rate was not due to increased levels of crime. Crime overall had been declining until very recently.

Tough on Crime One of the most visible indications was the “tough on crime” slogan. Social democratic and left-leaning political parties worldwide promised to be tough on law and order, in order to out-flank the right wing.

Being ‘tough on crime’ soon took on another dimension. If it was OK to be tough on crime it was also OK to be tough on criminals. When three prisoners severely beaten by a large number of prison officers at Hawkes Bay Prison subsequently sought compensation, the case was referred to by the Minister of Justice, as an ‘alleged’ assault, and the victims were publicly labeled as a “bunch of scum bags”. Going to prison was no longer enough punishment; punishment could continue following the release of offenders from prison.

The Objectification of Offenders The objectification of offenders allows us to take the next step, and treat them as being less human, and of less value than other human beings. If this in time leads to the denial of basic human rights of particular classes of offenders, international experience would suggest that behaviour of that kind does nothing to reduce crime, and is more likely to turn dangerous offenders into politically motivated terrorists.

Thus far, I have talked about the racism that is inherent in New Zealand society, about the extraordinary talent we have for being intolerant of anyone who is different, and that for many New Zealanders, Maori are what I call “Insider Outsiders” – tangata whenua treated as displaced persons, or who are seen to accommodate within their midst a dangerous brown underclass. I have spoken about the impact of market reforms, the promotion of individualism, and the objectification of those who don’t fit the mould. It seems to me that the challenge for the Police is how to can continue as Ambassadors of Peace in an cultural environment, which increasingly places you in “crime control” mode? It seems to me that as we use the technology and science now available to us to harden our targets, it becomes too easy to harden our hearts.

Gang management in New Zealand, puts all the aforementioned factors into sharp relief – how we regard gangs and choose to deal with them, tells us a great deal about how we position ourselves in New Zealand society. Do we see gangs as the extreme end of a dark underclass, with whom we should not contemplate engaging, or do we believe that through engagement, we can promote community peace? Let me take up the last part of this presentation with some views on that.

As a Senior Sergeant in Lower Hutt, during the mid 70’s, and as Chairman of the Wainuiomata Maori Committee, I found myself battling with community and family dysfunction. It drastically changed my views of those families whose children were involved in gang activity. I was no longer able to pigeon hole them as an active criminal sub-culture. It became clear to me that within the gangs were members who were seeking for a door through which they could walk. On the other side of that door was community affirmation and support, public legitimacy, and the promise of being treated as productive citizens. The door was firmly shut, and the handle was on the other side.

I remembered that lesson, when as Head of the Prison Service between 1989 and 1993, I had to grapple with the issue of gang rivalry in prison. The Mongrel Mob leaders formed the Mob Advisory Panel – a group of Mongrel Mob leaders, who we were able to access prisoners , and dampen down gang conflict within the prison walls. Leaders who were able to come into the prison, and through their influence mediate on issues of inter and intra gang rivalry. Later research indicated that this approach contributed to an estimated 75% reduction in prison incidents. It was an approach that did not earn favour with our political masters of the day, nor with those that argued that the only way to deal with gangs in prisons was to deny their existence - an approach reflected in the fable, the “Emperor’s New Clothes’.

The Wanganui Drive-By Shooting

What is our position today? The Wanganui drive-by shooting of an innocent child in 5 May 2007, prompted a vigourous public debate about how the law abiding community should respond to gangs and gang wars. It highlighted the range of views on this issue. None of those in political control appeared to have sought the advice of their officials, or referred to the substantial research which tells us what works. The opportunity to rack up community fear was an opportunity too good to miss.

Two Schools of Thought – Los Angeles vs New York

What does the evidence tell us. In simple terms, most of us fall into one of two camps.

Elimination through Enforcement, (the Los Angeles approach) or

Ensuring Public Safety through Gang and Community Engagement (the New York approach)

Over the last twenty years Los Angeles (and Chicago) , have adopted a heavy emphasis on gang elimination through law enforcement. New York (and Toronto, Canada) have taken a public safety and preventive approach by promoting jobs, education and encouraged youth to draw away from gang activity. Both cities adopted their strategies over twenty years ago.

Elimination through Enforcement – the Los Angeles Way

In Los Angeles, thousands of young people have been killed in Los Angeles gang conflicts despite decades of extremely aggressive gang enforcement. City and state officials have spent billions of dollars on policing and surveillance, on development of databases containing the names of tens of thousands of alleged gang members, and on long prison sentences for gang members. Spending on gang enforcement has far outpaced spending on prevention programs or on improved conditions in communities where gang violence takes a heavy toll.

Los Angeles taxpayers have not seen a return on their massive investments over the past quarter century. Law enforcement agencies report that there are now six times as many gangs and at least double the number of gang members in the region. In the undisputed gang capital of the U.S., more police, more prisons, and more punitive measures haven’t stopped the cycle of gang violence. Los Angeles is losing the war on gangs.

Ensuring Public Safety through Engagement – the New York Way

New York used extensive social resources -- job training, mentoring, after-school activities, recreational programs – and made significant dents in gang violence. A variety of street work and intervention programs "outside the realm of law enforcement" were adopted and caused gang violence to decrease by the end of the 1980s. Three years ago, Los Angeles police reported 11,402 gang-related crimes. The New York police reported 520 gang related crimes.

In July 2007, the Justice Policy Institute, Washington DC issued a major report on the issue, and confirmed the importance of addressing the issue of gangs, not through an “enforcement” lens, but rather through a comprehensive public safety strategy.

The researchers found that there was no consistent relationship between law enforcement measures of gang activity and crime trends, and that heavy-handed suppression efforts can increase gang cohesion and police-community tensions.

Gangs and the 2008 Election

As the nation headed into the 2008 Election, It was inevitable that the issue of gangs and how they should be dealt with, was the topic of heated, and sometimes uninformed debate and discussion. Piecemeal, ill-conceived legislation would substitute for a comprehensive long term strategy to deal with gangs. The election debate took on a new look when South Australia’s Premier Mike Rann came to town. Premier Rann talked about “the terrorist within”. The mantra “gang members are terrorists – treat them like terrorists” first heard from Ron Mark and Michael Laws gained credence. But how should we treat terrorists? Did we know?

If the experts on terrorism are correct, the proposition of developing strategies to deal with gangs, as though they were terrorists, has some merit. Dr Pete Lentini of Director of the Global Terrorism Research Centre, School of Political and Social Inquiry, Monash University, in a recent article “Understanding and Combating Terrorism” identified successful strategies for reducing terrorism. The same strategies could well be adapted to reduce gang activity. If we were to adapt the strategies proposed by Lentini, the following points would assist us to combat and reduce gang activity.

Above all, develop a rational, long term strategy. Avoid the temptation to politicize the gang issue, and to offer ‘silver bullet’ solutions through piecemeal legislation Don’t deal with public fear, by promoting public fear – take a rational long term approach to the issue Seek to understand issues of causation - and address them. Understand that while some gang members are dangerous criminals, not all members of gang families are criminals, or condone criminal behaviour.

I applied these principles in my capacity as a school trustee at local College, and it seemed to work. We had become highly concerned about a group of Maori students, all from gang families, who were dealing in drugs, violence and general mayhem within the school. That year there were 38 of these children suspended. The trustees decided to take a different approach to that of crime control, and instead focus on the parents of the children, and work toward promoting their engagement in school activity. We started by inviting 30 members of the Mongrel Mob to run the barbecue at our annual sports day. There was not one incident all day, and by the end of the day, they were organising the kids for three legged races, and lolly scrambles. Over the next year, and with a lot of negotiation with parents, teachers and management, they got involved in coaching sport, accompanying their children on field trips, and at the end of the year, a week long trip to marae at Matata and the following year to Ruatoria. They become our most prolific legal fund raisers, and in 2008, the number of Maori students suspended reduced to eight. The reason for success? The parents underneath all their macho stuff, wanted desparately to belong, and we made it possible.

Abut three months after the strategy started I was visited at home by four members of the Mongrel Mob. I have to confess that my first thought was about whether I had paid all my bills. There were two couples – who wanted to talk about an issue within their wider whanau. As we sat and talked I noticed something unusual. Firstly, one of the women was wearing an “It’s Not OK” T shirt. Secondly, one of the couples was holding hands – that would have been a “No No” in the early days of the Mob.

They were concerned about a third whanau, and the violence being perpetrated by the man against his partner and their teenage son. They wanted help in developing a strategy to keep the whanau safe; in their view, someone was likely to die, and/or end up in prison. At the end of our conversation, I asked what had prompted them to get involved. One of the men responded, “I saw Viv Tamati on TV, saying “It’s Not OK” – and we talked about. It’s about time we kept our whanau safe from all this shit”. Through engagement, we have the potential to transform lives.

Let me make one final comment. I have been very impressed by Police efforts to apply the methods of science.

It seems to me that the Police are leading the way in ‘changing the way we think about crime and crime control’ and to confront with good, tested ideas, a crime control landscape which remains doggedly based on intuition, anecdote, received wisdom and untutored opinion. When criminal justice professionals act rationally, it has the potential to chip away at the demonising, folk-devil generating political temper that has permeated crime debates over recent decades. Crime, it says, is a recurrent feature of everyday life. Criminals are not Other. They are, or at least may be, us.

As responses to crime have heated up over recent decades, the patient and careful discovery of what works to prevent or reduce offending has faced a struggle to complete with more politically driven rhetoric and policy. Scientific method not only produces rational knowledge, but it competes with the ill-founded opinions on crime and its control that circulate in contemporary social and political life.

I would urge you to learn from your colleagues in the fields of social science, anthropology, sociology, and community development. Strategies such “Inspiring Communities” and the “Whanau Ora Strategy” have significant implications for Police behaviour. Find out “what works” and direct your energies accordingly.

Be all means , be rational and scientific. But if we want to promote community peace, we need to respond to the needs of significant others. Often it is about providing legitimacy, affirmation and respect. Earlier today, the Minister of Police called for you to exercise leadership. Let me leave you with an example of exemplary leadership in the persona of Moshe Dayan, the Commander in Chief of the Israeli Defence Force, turned politician and peacemaker. He once said, “If you want to make peace, don’t talk to your friends. “Talk to your enemies.”

Kia ora tatou

ends

© Scoop Media