The Summit Of Folly: Why ‘Middle New Zealand” Will Have The Last Word On Crime And Punishment

ByThe Daily Blog

ANDREW LITTLE must be wondering whether his Justice Summit was worth it. Encounters between practitioners of deliberative democracy and participants in direct democracy are seldom trouble free. How could they be? Deliberators are elected, while participants in direct democratic forums are often self-selected, or, even worse, the delegates of special interest groups. By the time the Justice Summit drew to a close it was very clear that the formal practices of deliberative democracy and direct democracy’s roiling currents of passion and conviction had only Little in common.

If nothing else, the experience will have shown Little what he is up against. The anger and hurt of Maori. The radical programmes with which the latter propose to empty the prisons of their disproportionate ethnic muster. The anxious attempts of the various state institutions tasked with managing crime and punishment to generate outcomes that meet the often contradictory expectations of their political masters. And last – but by no means least – the inescapable reality of “Middle New Zealand’s” veto: it’s indisputable power and its implacable determination to have the final say.

That power was on full display in the opening hours of the Summit when Jayne Crothall, whose three year old daughter, Brittany, was murdered as she slept in 1997, was reported as breaking down in tears when a Maori woman claimed Pakeha did not know what it was like to be victimised.

“This has been a horrendous summit for victims of crime”, Crothall told the 700 Summit participants “People have been told they don’t know what it is like to be a victim because they’re European. There have been a lot of racist comments made. I have never heard so much racism.”

Sadly, it is Jayne Crothall’s words that Middle New Zealand will take away from the Justice Summit. Her accusations of racism will be amplified across the country by the Sensible Sentencing Trust who are also likely to highlight the words of University of Canterbury criminologist, Greg Newbold, who boycotted the whole event as a waste of time and told RNZ National that if Little is serious about reducing the prison muster, then he should “build more prisons and end double-bunking”.

Middle New Zealand: overwhelmingly Pakeha; gainfully employed; living in their own homes; law-abiding and tax-paying; is temperamentally impatient (if not contemptuous) of sociological and historical explanations for Maori offending. To their ears, the arguments of academics and “experts” about poverty and colonisation come across as sounding suspiciously like excuses.

Which is why nearly all of the evidence of Maori suffering will have been, at best, half-heard by Middle New Zealand. At worst, it will be taken as proof of the “Maarees’” manifest deficiencies as citizens. By contrast, and simply because they chime so completely with their own deep-seated prejudices, Jayne Crothall’s words will not only be heard, but they will also be remembered and angrily repeated. Such is the power of Pakeha confirmation bias.

The thing to remember about all of the colonial societies in which the settlers have triumphed demographically, is that the over-representation of the colonised in the criminal justice and prison systems will be welcomed, consciously or unconsciously, by the settlers’ descendants as proof that their culture is still on top. Were only 15-16 percent of prison inmates Maori (i.e. the muster matched the percentage of New Zealanders identifying as Maori) a number (probably a distressingly large number) of Pakeha would interpret the statistic as evidence that the Police and the Courts were not doing their jobs.

Of course, Andrew Little can’t say that: not if he wants his party to win the next election. What’s more, the Labour-NZF-Green Government cannot even be seen to be addressing the gross over-representation of Maori in New Zealand’s prison system to aggressively. Middle New Zealand’s tolerance threshold runs out at the notion of convicted criminals being rehabilitated outside prison walls. They will accept intensifying rehabilitation efforts behind bars, and many would accept the desirability of every prisoner having their own cell. What they will not accept is criminals being “set loose in the community” before they have demonstrated conclusively that it is safe to release them.

That’s why Greg Newbold advised Andrew Little to “build more prisons and end double-bunking”. Because he is shrewd enough (as both an ex-con and an academic expert) to know that his is the only formula which Middle New Zealand (the people who determine the outcome of general elections) is ready to accept.

That Little gets this was illustrated by his last-minute offer to hold a special summit for the victims of crime. It’s a terrible idea. Such a gathering will, almost certainly, morph into a no-holds-barred display of Middle New Zealand’s retributive instincts. Little will be ordered to keep on doing everything that his just-concluded Justice Summit begged him to stop doing. The racist arbiters of crime and punishment in New Zealand will jubilantly exercise their political veto – and, God forgive them, Andrew Little and Jacinda Ardern will comply.

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38 Comments

  1. To be a ‘good politician’ one needs be perceived as being highly competent whilst actually having no idea what to do.

  2. Usually I like your stuff Chris but I found this piece to be overly cynical, tiresomely fatalistic and basically, unhelpful to anyone. What was your point? Despair is?

  3. Looks like you need to do some more research and reading Jay it is not all about past injustices but we do need to look at how we got to here and why indigenous people, black and brown people are over represented in many western countries prisons, why? how ? when ? what happened etc ?
    There is a pattern how did this pattern happen? do you get the picture jay

  4. lol a carefully crafted trap for the unwary, the we want change as long as everything stays the same crowd

    1. Not everything that’s illegal is something I’d consider a crime; it depends entirely on what the crime is, the movitvation, and the victim.

      For example: in the case of murder, who did they murder and why? I can think of a few people that needed killin’… (even people besides being in the middle of armed hold ups.)

      Armed robbery…well…it’s hard to come up with circumstances in which armed robbery could be justified, but…I’m sure it could be done.

      Crimes against humanity… Don’t bother arresting them. Just Bin Laden them in the head.

  5. What I would say about this vexed issue is that when a Maori commits a crime not only is s/he judged as an individual but judged as being a member of the Maori race – when a non-Maori (especially white) person commits a crime I don’t ever remember their race being judged as well.

    1. You are so right Eso Pine. This is the PAKEHA PLAN – keep on publicising the race of so called Maori offenders, so that the statisticians can keep promoting that Maori are criminals.

      But these statisticians forget – there are no full Maori left in NZ, there are hardly any half Maori, so I ask – Are our prisons full of Maori or Pakeha?

    2. Esoteric Pineapples: “when a Maori commits a crime not only is s/he judged as an individual but judged as being a member of the Maori race…”

      Er – no. That doesn’t happen. Reportage is of crime and perpetrator. I can’t recall ethnicity being mentioned in crime reportage since I was very young. The rest of us these days are left to make our own judgements on the basis of said perpetrator’s name and appearance.

  6. “And last – but by no means least – the inescapable reality of “Middle New Zealand’s” veto: it’s indisputable power and its implacable determination to have the final say.”

    Middle NZ demands tax cuts, increased social services, and more mega-prisons. But the math won”t add up unless future govts borrow billions, Muldoon-style. Which is pretty much what the last 9 years of the Key govt did. Pandering to Middle NZ is a fools game.

  7. I’m interested to know what the links are between powerful Maaori interests and those Maori in prison, whatever the reason. Does rural (Marae) have an overview on what is happening with urban (without historical support systems)? Are they putting in place any programmes to support those in prison?
    Whites seem to be treated with great suspicion when they try to help and that offer of help is misread as arrogance or ‘colonialism’.
    It seems to have been forever since one person would just help another simply because they needed help. And yes I know we’re all different but we’re still all people.

  8. The big move would be to enable parole at half time in the sentence (we went from 1/3rd to 2/3rd)

    1. if the prisoner has done the rehab (anger/drug whatever).
    2. has trained up (and has a job to go).

    Incentives are good.

    If the government wants single cells, without building more prisons they invest in rehab and work training.

    Then there is rehab capacity outside of prison as an alternative to prison – where Maori groups can come in.

  9. I suspect you are right Chris.
    The only possible solution is to attack the low-level causes of criminality in an attempt to reduce the flow into our prison system: – poverty elimination, government job and training guarantees, ending student loans, excellent free public health systems, decriminalising cannabis and no doubt plenty of other things. In particular something/anything to suck the oxygen out of gangs.
    For those already in the maw of he prison system, the best to hope for is the ending of the most egregious forms of sadism like double bunking.

  10. Who do you know that is european and denigrates Maori for being Maori? Or is it just that your sure some do underneath but don’t let it show. But they’r racist really , just that they never do or say anything racist.
    I think that Jays has to be made to provide the nearest thing to an example here for protesting racism in the other direction. That in itself is about as near as you get to anti Maori racism as far as my experience goes. I ‘m sure the vast majority of European New Zealanders, just like myself, would love to see those statistics obliterated and for Maori to participate and prosper.
    Does anyone have access to prison statistics pre 1984? It is from then that I think a whole slice of our society got shut out of participating in society, and that included a disproportionate number of Maori. Perhaps because like me most Maori prefer to work with their hands than ti sit in an office all day, and those were the jobs that were exported to China and Korea and Bangladesh . That’s where it went wrong, and shut out of the economy some Maori have looked back to their now only learned of ownership of the country with a resentment that 40 years ago was not a significant part of our existence.
    I think focusing on running the country along the principle of Savage and the first Labour government, of full employment as the first priority of government, making sure nothing was imported that could be made here while anyone was without a reasonable job, would do more to reduce the prison population than anything else.
    D J S

  11. Many Maori must feel like growing up as disowned in their own country. That is, because compared to Pakeha most Maori are relatively poor and live like second class.

    Hence it should not surprise that there may be a higher crime rate amongst Maori, and the same applies to Native Americans in the US and Canada also, and of course to Aboriginals in Australia.

    If systemic and other discrimination is allowed to continue for generations, then it should not surprise that there is generational social dysfunction.

    As a result there is also a feeling of resentment amongst Maori towards Pakeha, so we have racism coming from both sides.

    Bold measures would be needed to change all this, and to keep Maori out of prison and to rehabilitate those that end up there.

    As Chris writes, it will be Middle New Zealand, mostly Pakeha, but also a new vocal group of immigrants, often of Chinese or various Indian ethnicity, who will have the final say, at least at the ballot box.

    That is what will force Andrew Little and the government to operate carefully, so to not threaten their chances to win enough votes to stay in government.

    The same applies to other policies they consider, whether it is taxation, welfare or the environment.

    Middle New Zealand like to keep the status quo, more or less, and are mostly only prepared for making cosmetic changes.

    That is why there is so little progress, and democracy is a double edged sword, it offers representation, but also seems to hamper progress, as the majority want no progress of the kind as for instance written about here.

    And this is why rehabilitation is endless BS talk, as the Middle New Zealanders, who run businesses and are employers, they will only hire a former criminal if they come crawling in humility and can ‘prove’ they have reformed. Most will not even be considered for a job, having a ‘record’, full stop, and what is the incentive to go straight, when you get denied a chance to live a normal life.

    The best an ex prisoner may be able to expect is a shit job, possibly a physical one, that is low paid. That is provided they even get a job offer.

    So society keeps its criminals in a vicious cycle, and then points the finger at the baddies, what a game they play, a BS game in bigoted little Muddle Niu Zeeland.

  12. This entire storyline needs to be seen against a backdrop of NZ society being made worse by the day by local banks, corporations and politicians, and the world being made worse by the day by their counterparts overseas. Additionally, there are global forces beyond the control of anyone that are adding to the stress on the entire political-economic system. All that is leading to increased costs, increased stress and lower living standards for the majority of people.

    The ‘magic’ period, when the cost of consumer goods fell because of replacement of locally made with cheaply-made imports, is over. Now it is a relentless grind upwards. The ;magic period’ when NZ could sell dairy products at high prices is over. And the ‘magic period’ when fuel costs fell because of low international prices and a high NZ dollar is also over.

    When living is easy and food and goods are cheap the crime rate is low. When living is hard and food and goods are expensive the crime rate is high.

    And when the environment collapses or the money system collapses people flee or riot in the streets.

    Against the backdrop of reality, how do people see Andrew Little: as a person who has a good understanding of what is happening locally and globally, a having a plan to deal with it all? Or as a floundering fool who is in denial of reality and is pretending?

    Having had personal dealings with him in the past, I have a pretty good idea.

    1. Putting aside the silly crime porn thing, lets say something about the rehabilitation crap.

      The fact is that the rehabilitation crap works. It is statiscally proved that places were prisoners can study, work, have good life conditions and are not brutalized give the prisoner a very high chance of being ‘rehabilited’. It reachs something like 50%-90% of rehabilitation in one youth model prison in New Zealand (of course, you don’t put every kind of prisioner there).

      On the other hand, a prison system that brutalizes the prisioners is nothing more thatn a school of crime, were they will learn new nasty things. This kind of system is not the official one but it is the pratical one because of the money needed to run a good system, rehabilitation is below 10%.

      Now, what you have to ask yourself is which kind of ex-prisioner you want to live among society, the brutalized one or the rehabilitaded one? Because surely they ain’t be prisioners (ok, in most cases) all their lifes.

      They will go back to societity to live their lifes, the question is which life it will be.

      Of course, there are a lot of issues, how much punishment and how much rehabilitation should be applied, etc, there is a whole lot of specialists that discuss just that.

      Then there are those silly first world question, like if the guy should get his gay porn or not, or such kind of thing, although the argument made is a good one (freedom of expression and the right to receive information), even if it is just for its own sake.

  14. On another note, first medical cannabis licence issued today, as expected to a well financed large concern. What does that do to the misuse of drugs act, i be-leave the exact wording is “Cannabis has no medical value” etc. So you bastards finally have to admit that you are wrong and have been committing crimes against humanity in this country for 50 years.
    whats my lawyers phone number again Hmmm.
    Wanna reduce prison populations, immediately release every person serving time for cannabis related convictions, right fucking now.
    Wanna example of small narrow minded fucktardedness there you have it, rise i say, revolt i say, make demands, smash windows, light fires, we have them now.
    Immediately legalize it totally TODAY, you have exposed the lie totally, you have used a harmless traditional medical herb as a tool to oppress the native peoples of this country for long enough and now you will reep what you fuckin sowed.

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