Contrasts in Punishment

At the Hunter Council Chamber, Hunter Building, Victoria University of Wellington, 21st March.

Let me start by thanking Emeritus Professor David Brown for his insightful reflection on the book, ‘Contrast in Punishment”. I recall David speaking at the ‘Costs of Crime’ Conference in February 2011 which was co-hosted by the then Institute of Policy Studies and the Robson Hanan Trust. It was certainly the highlight of the day. When he spoke at a private meeting of 40 business leaders the following day, it had such an impact that Sir Stephen Tindall offered to employ a released prisoner at each of his warehouses.

I have been asked to provide a ‘reflection ‘ David has focussed on the book, I want to reflect primarily on one of its authors, John Pratt. Anna, I do apologise for not giving you equal billing. I know that if it had not been for your meeting with John in 2008, and the subsequent work you did to translate Nordic documents and guide John through the complexities of Nordic culture, this book would not have been written. However, I think it is the time to acknowledge John’s work over the years.

John’s academic achievements are well known. In 2009, John he was awarded the Radzinowicz Prize by the editorial board of the British Journal of Criminology for his two part article on ‘Scandinavian Exceptionalism’ which appeared in that journal in 2008. The prize is awarded for the article that ‘most advanced the discipline of criminology’ in its year of publication.

In 2012 the Academy of the Royal Society of New Zealand elected Professor Pratt to the Fellowship of the Royal Society of New Zealand. The Royal Society reported that he is “internationally acclaimed for his research concentrating on the study of why penal policies change in modern societies and why the punishment of offenders takes particular forms at different times.' John has been teaching at Victoria University since ………..and in that time has made a significant contribution to criminological debate. Most importantly, he has done so at a time when his views were unpopular with many politicians, and with the populist media.

In their recent publication, “Public Criminology”, authors Ian Loader and Richard Sparks put John in the company of David Garland, Richard Ericson, Jonathan Simon and Jock Young, as a class of ‘lonely prophets’. They describe this group as one which has resisted catering to the policy audience or engaging in research with a small-scale empirical focus. Instead, they develop macro-explanations of patterns of crime and social control in the context of the global economic, social, cultural and technological change that whirls above our heads.

As Load and Sparks put it, “their public task is to learn about these worrisome trends, and the – not so good – politics that drive them, and to issue warnings about the dark, illiberal conditions that contemporary democracies are heading into under the guise of controlling crime, disorder and terrorism. The more they can illuminate these dangers for our students, practitioners and co--citizens, the more they may be mobilised to act against them."

If John Pratt is a ‘lonely prophet’, and I believe he is, then I have never felt that he was entirely at ease with the public aspects of that role. Notwithstanding, he has chosen to write and speak about the advent of the penal state, the ascendancy and crisis of neoliberalism, the rise of a surveillance society, and the growing tension between managing risk and promoting social capital.

It has been a lonely and at times harrowing task. In this latest book, John and Anna write about the insults and criticisms from MP’s toward our Governor General when in 2002, he dared to suggest that ‘prison does not work’. That behaviour was repeated in 2009 when the NZ Chief Justice expressed her reservations about the direction of criminal justice policy.

Those however, were one-off shots against dignitaries who were able to retreat into their well protected households, and subsequently emerge, relatively unscathed. John Pratt however, is a much more vulnerable target, and over the years has withstood a barrage of opprobrium from the ‘tough on crime’ brigade, members of the Sensible Sentencing Trust, and the likes of Michel Laws and former ACT MP, David Garrett. That he has continued to speak out in truth, is a testimony to both his stamina and commitment to change.

My first conscious awareness of this prophetic role, was in 2005 I read his inaugural professorial lecture, “The Dark Side of Paradise. Explaining New Zealand’s history of high imprisonment: John argued that the high imprisonment rate bore no connection to the crime rates, but was rather the result of cultural intolerance toward outsiders and the under-class- attitudes; attitudes which had hardened since the market reforms of the 1980’s.

It caused me to think of the way attitudes to imprisonment and security had shifted from the early 1990’s onwards. . I recalled that in and around 1990, there was a dedicated wing at Wi Tako prison for those on release to work. Every week day around 40 offenders would leave the prison with their lunch in a paper bag, and travel on bicycle or train to work within the Hutt Valley – returning again at night. Now and then some would take a circular route home, via the Nae Nae Hotel, or to visit a girlfriend. No one seemed to be too fussed about that, and apart from the loss of work privileges, these isolated incidents failed to trigger widespread moral panic within the community. By 2005, there were less than that number on release to work nationally. The dangerousness of offenders had not increased.

Our concern was no longer to achieve a sensible transition from prison to community, but to punish offenders to the fullest extent available within the law, under the pretext of a concern for public safety. In a remarkably short period of time, concern for structured social integration of prisoners, had given way to a mean spirited punitiveness. John’s article helped explain why.

If that article helped myself and others to understand that attitudes toward punishment are embedded in and shaped by our political, economic, social, and cultural stories then this latest publication takes us further on that journey. The authors have carefully assembled the comparative histories of two groups of nations, to describe the impact of on the one hand the social democratic ideals of Nordic nations, and on the other the rise (and eventual collapse) of liberal welfarism in Anglophile nations.

For me, the book reads like a good mystery novel – you have to read the whole thing to put the jigsaw together, to find out who was responsible for the crime, and why.

Within the book are revelatory moments. I was unaware of the German legal scholar Franz von Listz who in 1889, rejected the biological determinism of his contemporaries i.e. the belief that “some people are just born bad” – a view that still pops out of the mouths of political leaders from time to time. Instead, he proposed that crime was as much a product of the social environment, as the individual deficiencies or defects of the criminal. He argued firstly that the concept of punishment should give way to rehabilitation and prevention. Secondly, that criminological research should provide the foundation for penal policy, rather than be judicially determined on the basis of legal principles. Thirdly, that the state should develop social policies to reduce the criminogenic features that affected the criminal’s environment – housing, public health and reduction amongst them. Those principles, applied 124 years later, could well form the basis of an acceptable Reducing Crime and Reoffending Plan.

The main purpose of the book however, is to compare Nordic and Anglophile approaches to punishment. The dualism of the Nordic approach to punishment, emphasises on one hand, reliance on the state to secure the social wellbeing of its population, and on the other, an active resistance toward the over-use of punishment. The purpose of imprisonment was to guide prisoners toward a responsible use of freedom, a task simply not achievable if the prison experience demanded complete obedience. You get a sense of this from a report of the Swedish Prison and Probation Board 1964, which says “We shall not forget that we live in a society that wants to show respect for the individual human beings - this is part of the essence of democracy”.

These Nordic values were and are in direct contrast and conflict with the prevailing attitudes that have existed in New Zealand for many years. I recall in 1992, inviting a Danish expert on prison management to New Zealand, to advise on the development of unit management. Eric Anderson, who was well into his 70’s at the time, had a PhD in Comparative Linguistics, which logically led him to take up a position as an upholstery instructor in the Danish prison system. He ultimately became a senior prison manager in the process, developing what was in those times, a progressive approach toward prisoner management. He toured New Zealand , in an advisory capacity, talking with prison staff about ;prison management. He was not well received. He was a sophisticated Socratic thinker, who would ask prisoners officers not only what they were doing but why. The initial response was usually, “because we’ve always done it that way.” He was an uncomfortable experience for most. Before Eric left New Zealand , he presented a seminar to Dept of Justice senior managers. The then Head of Psychological Services, Harry Love asked him “How many psychologists there were in the Danish prison system”. Erik gave him a withering look, “Psychologists” ” he asked. “Was Freud a Dane?"

But there was more to Eric than his intellect. He had an unwavering commitment to ensuring that prisoners lived the most normal life possible, for as little time as possible. His interest was not in security, but in teaching prisoners to manage freedom. His Nordic values clashed with those of our prison culture, which were in turn a reflection of the values held by most New Zealanders at the time.

While he was in New Zealand, we carried out a trial experiment at Rimutaka prison. We gave one unit the responsibility of managing their food budget for a week. Kitchens were located in each of the units in those days, and prisoners ate in a common dining room. By Thursday they had eaten their rations for the week. I asked Eric, “What do we do now” He replied, “Give them all a pamphlet on the virtues of fasting”. By week two, they had got it right. They learnt how to use cheap cuts of meat to make the food last, they experienced the fellowship of preparing food, the challenge of eating their own mistakes, and the place of food in celebrating their lives together. Today, food is delivered luke-warm from a central kitchen, in plastic containers, and eaten in their cells. The food like the prison, is without soul.

In contrast to the inclusionary values of the Nordic nations, the authors paint a increasingly depressing picture of the Anglophile approach, in which welfare thinking about punishment is effectively erased from political memory, to be replaced by policies that punish, exclude and marginalise. We are now at a place in New Zealand history where to quote the authors, “the state knows only how to use its powers negatively: more divisions , more punishments, more exclusions.” (p.208) If you think that is an exaggeration, reflect on the political activities of the past week. Under the Social Security (Benefit Categories and Work Focus) Amendment Bill mothers will be denied the domestic purposes benefit, if they do not put their children into pre-school education. The unemployed will be deprived of a benefit if they test positive for drugs.

Yesterday, the House discussed the Parole Amendment Bill, the Bail Amendment Bill, the Legal Assistance (Sustainability) Amendment Bill , the Public Safety (Public Protection Orders) Bill, and the Human Rights Amendment Bill (which does away with the position of Race Relations Conciliator). All this legislation is aimed either at increasing the time offenders spend in prison, restricting the opportunity for release, or limiting their access to justice. Today was report-back time on the Prohibition of Gang Insignia on Government Premises Bill, which makes it a criminal offence to wear a gang patch into a government office. People who were once punished for doing are now punished for being.

The book finishes with a bit of a thump. Perhaps as a former bureaucrat, I was expecting the last chapter to provide a ten point plan that would guide politicians and public servants as to what they need to do to put things right. But that is not the role of the prophet. The prophet admonishes, warns, directs, encourages, intercedes, teaches and counsels. At that point, their job is finished; it is for the people to absorb the message, and respond.

Let me respond. I’m convinced that we are able to dig our way out of what is a rather large, black hole. There are positive signs of reform within the prison system. In recent months we have seen increased work activity in prisons, increased rehabilitation and reintegration activity, increased prisoner literacy and numeracy programmes, and plans to bring restorative justice back into the prison. The current CEO of Corrections is committed to community-led, Corrections supported prisoner reintegration, which places a strong focus on building social capital. There are a significant number of public servants and politicians who want to see a move away from the punitive, negative and controlling behaviour that has dominated our approach to criminal justice for the last twenty five years.

“Contrasts in Punishment” is an important book, in that it constructs our social history around the issue of punishment, and through that analysis provides us with the information we need to strategise way forward.

Earlier this week Sir David Carruthers, who is unable to be here, asked me to pass on his good wishes to the authors. He made the following comment , “ I am a great admirer of John Pratt’s work and as a humble worker in the vineyard I think we are really fortunate to have people of his quality and integrity doing the heavy lifting in an academic sense, which encourages the rest of us as we try and apply principle to the chaos of everyday life.’ I am sure we all endorse that sentiment. Kia ora tātou.

ENDS

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