Post by Kiwi Frontline on Jun 16, 2019 6:18:18 GMT 12
THE RATE OF MĀORI INCARCERATION IS A CRISIS. WE MUST START ASKING THE RIGHT QUESTIONS
I'm not a sociologist, but neither is Chester Borrows, so I feel equally qualified as the former Minister of Courts to opine on the crisis of Māori incarceration. Plus, having actually been to prison rather than merely visited the approved sections, I'm in a better position than most to give some insights.
Borrows and a small group of well-meaning researchers wrote a report, He Waka Roimata, A Vessel of Tears, to try and work out why our prison population is disproportionately Māori. You will not be surprised that the answer was racism and colonialism.
The report traces the rise in indigenous prison populations with contemporaneous urbanisation and assumes, without explanation, that one leads to the other. Yet this answer is unsatisfactory. Urbanisation occurred over all racial groups during the affected period. Something else was going on.
Before we get to this cause, let's reflect on the uniquely Māori terms; iwi and hapū. There are no analogous English words and may reflect a unique aspect of Māori culture. Family, however, is a universal human construct. And it's important.
Parents are responsible for their children, including their teenage children. The problem with teenagers is that they are insane; driven by anger, hormones and acne to act recklessly. They refuse to listen, and they get each other pregnant. Perhaps that's the way we are designed, but culture has adapted to give parents control over financial resources that their rebellious offspring need to fuel their cavernous appetites.
This control is part of the glue that holds families together. It's a blunt instrument that doesn't always work, but parents love and understand their children. They are uniquely placed to make them see sense and not rush off with some jezebel or fall pregnant to some ageing lothario.
Welfare is a merino-covered sledge hammer that smashes these traditional bonds. Teenagers are freed from the financial constraints of their family and can turn to a new parent, the state, who will not judge, lecture, or express disappointment in their life decisions.
By 1936, according to the Borrows report, Māori made up just 11 per cent of the prison muster. This was a century since annexation and over sixty years since the end of the land wars. If colonialism and racism drove native incarceration, they were pretty ineffective.
However, only ten per cent of the indigenous population were urbanised at this time, compared with 60 per cent nationwide. The move to the cities was accompanied in 1938 by the Social Security Act. New Zealand began unpicking the fabric that held families, regardless of race, together for millennia and replaced it with a nihilistic monster.
By 1971, one generation later, 40 per cent of the prison muster were Māori and it's been rising ever since. It has kept growing even after the process of urbanisation had ceased but the reach of the welfare state became ever more comprehensive.
When you design a system that disenfranchises parents and undermines families you are rewarded with a cohort of lost children and will, in a few short years, find yourself taking babies off teenagers who are unfit to be parents.
The solution advocated by the Borrows report is vague but it does not matter because they are looking at the symptom, the criminal justice system, not the cause: welfare.
By Damien Grant
www.stuff.co.nz/opinion/113430953/the-rate-of-maori-incarceration-is-a-crisis-we-must-start-asking-the-right-questions
I'm not a sociologist, but neither is Chester Borrows, so I feel equally qualified as the former Minister of Courts to opine on the crisis of Māori incarceration. Plus, having actually been to prison rather than merely visited the approved sections, I'm in a better position than most to give some insights.
Borrows and a small group of well-meaning researchers wrote a report, He Waka Roimata, A Vessel of Tears, to try and work out why our prison population is disproportionately Māori. You will not be surprised that the answer was racism and colonialism.
The report traces the rise in indigenous prison populations with contemporaneous urbanisation and assumes, without explanation, that one leads to the other. Yet this answer is unsatisfactory. Urbanisation occurred over all racial groups during the affected period. Something else was going on.
Before we get to this cause, let's reflect on the uniquely Māori terms; iwi and hapū. There are no analogous English words and may reflect a unique aspect of Māori culture. Family, however, is a universal human construct. And it's important.
Parents are responsible for their children, including their teenage children. The problem with teenagers is that they are insane; driven by anger, hormones and acne to act recklessly. They refuse to listen, and they get each other pregnant. Perhaps that's the way we are designed, but culture has adapted to give parents control over financial resources that their rebellious offspring need to fuel their cavernous appetites.
This control is part of the glue that holds families together. It's a blunt instrument that doesn't always work, but parents love and understand their children. They are uniquely placed to make them see sense and not rush off with some jezebel or fall pregnant to some ageing lothario.
Welfare is a merino-covered sledge hammer that smashes these traditional bonds. Teenagers are freed from the financial constraints of their family and can turn to a new parent, the state, who will not judge, lecture, or express disappointment in their life decisions.
By 1936, according to the Borrows report, Māori made up just 11 per cent of the prison muster. This was a century since annexation and over sixty years since the end of the land wars. If colonialism and racism drove native incarceration, they were pretty ineffective.
However, only ten per cent of the indigenous population were urbanised at this time, compared with 60 per cent nationwide. The move to the cities was accompanied in 1938 by the Social Security Act. New Zealand began unpicking the fabric that held families, regardless of race, together for millennia and replaced it with a nihilistic monster.
By 1971, one generation later, 40 per cent of the prison muster were Māori and it's been rising ever since. It has kept growing even after the process of urbanisation had ceased but the reach of the welfare state became ever more comprehensive.
When you design a system that disenfranchises parents and undermines families you are rewarded with a cohort of lost children and will, in a few short years, find yourself taking babies off teenagers who are unfit to be parents.
The solution advocated by the Borrows report is vague but it does not matter because they are looking at the symptom, the criminal justice system, not the cause: welfare.
By Damien Grant
www.stuff.co.nz/opinion/113430953/the-rate-of-maori-incarceration-is-a-crisis-we-must-start-asking-the-right-questions