A Critical Appraisal of Responses to Māori Offending

Abstract

This article critically analyses the role that criminological theory and specific policy formulations of culture play in New Zealand's state response to Māori crime. We begin by charting policy responses to the "Māori problem" during the 1980s to the 2000s, with a particular focus on policies and interventions based on theorising that Māori offending is attributable to loss of cultural identity, through to the current preference for risk factor and criminogenic needs approaches. The second part of the article critiques strategies employed by administrative criminologists who, in partnership with the policy sector, attempt to elevate their own epistemological constructions of Indigenous reality in the policy development process over that of Indigenous knowledge and responses to social harm.

From a Search for Rangatiratanga to a Struggle for Survival - Criminal Justice, the State and Māori, 1985 to 2015. The 2015 JD Stout Lecture

“…46 During the 1990s, and despite government advancement in other parts of the public sector, the primary trend in the criminal justice sector shifted toward the controlled integration of Māori concepts and cultural practises into confined areas of the criminal justice system. 47 Criminal Justice managers introduced "acceptable" elements of Māori culture into the state-dominated system and sought to enhance the goals and status of the formal system through recruitment of more Māori into the justice sector. Officials also strove to achieve the goals of the strategy through enhancing officials' awareness of Māori culture.…”

Changing Narratives: Colonised Peoples, Criminology and Social Work

“…With relatively few exceptions in criminology (for example, Agozino 2003Agozino , 2004Agozino , 2005Cunneen 2011a and2011b;Morrison 2006;Sumner 1982;Tauri and Webb 2012) and social work (for example, Gray, Yellow Bird and Coates 2008;Green and Baldry 2008;Razack, 2009;Sinclair 2004), the colonial subjugation of Indigenous knowledges has not been analysed to any great extent. For criminology, part of the problem is that by 'taking the American and European criminological traditions as the point of departure, whether right or left realism, critical theory or administrative criminology-is that they all tend to operate without a theory of colonialism and its effects' (Blagg 2008: 11;see also Cohen 1988).…”

“…And there is a need to excavate the way in which colonial effects are perpetuated through knowledge control, particularly in the operation of criminal justice systems. Through the development of anti-colonial, postcolonial and Indigenous perspectives in criminology and social work we are beginning to witness a response to such needs, a framework within which the silencing of Indigenous voices is being challenged (see for example in criminology: Agozino 2003Agozino , 2004Agozino , 2005Cunneen 2011a;Davis 2011;Stubbs 2011;Tauri 2005Tauri and Webb 2012, and in social work: Bennett et al 2012Briskman 2008;Coates et al 2006;Green and Baldry 2008;Sinclair 2004). …”

“…Tauri (2012b), Tauri and Webb (2012) and Cunneen (2006Cunneen ( , 2011b point to the influence of the rise of risk-based analysis and the subsequent development of various diagnostic tools (based on 'criminogenic need') and therapeutic interventions (usually CBT) derived from actuarial models of offending. In particular, they draw attention to the extent to which these approaches have undermined Indigenous knowledges and methodologies, and the struggle for Indigenous rights more broadly.…”

Huakina Mai: A Kaupapa Māori Approach to Relationship and Behaviour Support

“…The ‘gap’ that exists in the current PB4L documentation is the policy's capability for knowing communities from their perspective, and producing policy and interventions that reflect diverse and ever-changing social contexts. The key question therefore is not ‘Do we have enough information?’, but rather ‘Do we really understand the social world for which this policy is being created?’ (Tauri, 2004, p. 5).…”