Darroch Ball
Co-Leader Sensible Sentencing Trust
The convenient excuse for criminals’ actions, that police officers, judges, and corrections are all “systemically racist”, will do nothing but ensure we fail to address the real causes of crime. This type of thinking has led to this government’s creeping introduction of race-based alternatives to formal justice which is leading to a totally separate race-based system in our country.
The reality, of course, is that no race-based programme would ever address the actual causes of crime – poor education, broken families, health, poverty, family violence, drug dependency – the list goes on. The one-dimensional analysis of an over-representation of Maori in the justice system indicating “obvious systemic racism”, is as bone-deep-stupid as thinking that because there is an over-representation of males in the justice system, there is “obvious systemic sexism”. This type of failed thinking is only going to lead to worse outcomes in our justice system: more crime, more reoffending, and a more dangerous society.
Iwi justice panels add yet another step along the pathway to this separatist justice system adding to the recent announcement of a separate ‘by Maori for Maori’ corrections pathway – which should start raising some serious red flags.
The biggest concern should be the fact that these ‘iwi panels’ are being dressed up, expanded, and funded as if they are working – but they are doing the exact opposite.
Around ten years ago the ‘marae-based’ alternate justice pathway was introduced to divert low-level offenders away from the District Court. It has since been expanded across the country and lots of money pumped into this programme where offenders get a telling off and a hot cup of Milo.
It was initially designed to deal with certain low-level offenders, specifically targeting the reoffending rate of young Maori, but is now inexplicably including more serious offenders like cop bashers, although it must be noted that they are no longer called ‘offenders’ on these panels – they must be referred to as ‘participants’.
Minister of Police Poto Williams recently defended the ‘success’ of the panels by quoting a stat from a 2019 report, that they had “a 22.5 per cent reduction in harm caused by re-offending”. If the media even pretended to do their job and read the report, they would see that not only are the panels not working, they are producing a reoffending rate that is actually worse than the normal district court process.
The panels have a ridiculous 74% reoffending rate compared to just 60% for the normal courts.
That means that a full three-quarters of people going through these panels end up reoffending. This is ideology meeting reality.
Even the initial intent of the panels has mutated from ‘reducing the sky-high reoffending levels of low-level Maori offenders’ into something that is somewhere close to the exact opposite. There are recidivist offenders attending these panels, they go on to reoffend at higher levels than court, and some are even cop bashers. We need to start wondering what these so-called ‘culturally targeted panels’ are designed for, and of course why there is this continued push for them when they are demonstrably failing.
This approach is clearly being slowly paved in our society from Maori wards, Maori based health systems, Maori based child welfare, and recently a newly announced Maori based corrections programme. We cannot expect this type of approach to give justice to victims, accountability to offenders, or provide a safer community.
Iwi panels are the pinnacle of all that is wrong with this approach – ideologically driven, one-dimensional thinking, sold to the public as if they are working when in fact the moment they are applied to the real world they end up causing more harm than good.
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