pn585. Fix long overdue reform of criminal justice system now

By Jonathon Milne*  in Newsroom: my editing.  Click here for full article.

This is where the buck starts.

The five new ministers responsible for New Zealand's criminal justice system are all Māori and Pasifika; their communities are now challenging them to completely overhaul a system that has put their young people in prison in record numbers.

Sixteen percent of the population is Māori, yet they make up 52.3 percent of the prison muster. Most of those were first funnelled through the youth justice system; an unspeakably awful 95 percent are former welfare kids. It isn't the gangs that act as a nursery for criminals; it is the state care system. 

For well over two decades politicians from both sides of politics have gone to elections boasting of how many prisons they've built, and how many people they've locked up.

Yet all the research, from all over the world, shows that prison serves no effect whatsoever as a deterrent to violent crime; all it does is act as a university to train up another generation  of criminals. Two years ago then Justice Minister Andrew Little admitted as much, saying "Real change means we have to do things differently," But Little's good intentions led to nothing as politicians pandered to the law and order lobby. Now, Little has been replaced as Justice  Minister, and his biggest  achievement,the Criminal Cases Review Commission, could be placed on the back burner.

Labour wants to  get rid of the three strikes law, but National and Act want it retained. According to a Ministry of Justice evidence brief, there have been no studies to measure whether the  three strikes law reduces crime, although observations of crimes targeted by the law "do not appear to demonstrate any obvious effects". The three strikes law is estimated to have cost the New Zealand government more than $2.7 million, with costs steadily increasing over the next 50 years. Former Commission member and crime and justice expert, Canterbury University's Dr Jarrod Gilbert

said former Justice Minister Andrew Little's Criminal Cases Review Commission was "a hell of an achievement" but much of its work now seems to have stalled. "Where the criminal justice reforms go now is the million-dollar question – in fact it's the billion-dollar question, because that's what our prisons cost," he said.

The new ministers with oversight of the justice portfolios are all Maori or Pasifika — Kris Faafoi, Justice, joined by Willie Jackson as his associate, Poto Williams, Police, Aupito William Sio, Courts, and Kelvin Davis, Minister for Corrections and (perhaps critically) for Children.

What do they need to do?

• On  cannabis: This is a problem that overwhelmingly impacts on Māori." The Government should have shown leadership in fixing a problem that consistently put Māori behind bars. "This shows a terrible lack of courage by the Government. It was pretty cowardly."
• Maori children: address the systemic failings that turned Māori children into grown-up criminals. It's such a big issue it won't be solved by Justice alone, it won't be solved by Police, it won't be solved by Corrections. It requires buy-in from across government and across the political spectrum.
• Listen to and work with their communities.
• Work with  victims and survivors. "When we get that response right we’ll see our epidemic of child abuse, domestic and sexual abuse slow, and start to turn around the inter-generational harm. Of  every $100 spent on prisons, only 50c is  spent on the victims in the justice system.

Children's Commissioner, Judge Andrew Becroft, was previously Principal Youth Court Judge. He thought that work Little wanted to have done in the under-18 area was constrained by the realpolitik, the realities of the coalition government. He looks forward to progressive changes in the youth justice system.

Specifically, 

• The age of minimum criminal responsibility should be raised from 10 to at least 12, if not 14. And all 17-year-olds should be dealt with in the youth justice system.
• Work to amend policy on police car chases involving young people.
• Work for Oranga Tamariki, police, health and education to provide much more significant and effective intervention for children who offend, and their families."

He concluded, 

"I think that's the real opportunity to cut off offending at the pass, and stop this funnel effect. There was a real imperative to significantly improve Oranga Tamariki's care and protection system. Too many young people in our youth justice system have a care and protection background and are known to the care and protection system, before they are known to the youth justice system." 

* Jonathan Milne co-authored an unpublished report on criminal justice and the media, funded by the Ministry of Justice through an independent media working group.