This is way too big a topic to cover in one feature, so partly out of necessity and partly out of the inescapable sense that I was going to bore some of you to death, I tried to keep it relatively narrowly focused on critiquing our current retributive, often violent systems of punishment.
But this article probably raises a bunch of questions I thought I’d try to talk a little about here if people are interested. The first, and easily most sympathetic retort to its central point is some version of “what about victims who want their abusers to be punished? What are their rights?”.
When I put this to prisoner advocates like Emilie and Awatea, both of whom have been victimised themselves in different ways, they point out not all victims feel the same way. Some would prefer a restorative process. Often those people aren't heard in this debate. I personally think of the queer community's response to the vandalism of the rainbow crossing in Karangahape Rd in Auckland. They asked for a restorative process. How often do those responses make headlines? Do we do enough to honour the wishes victims who don’t want retribution? Second, victims’ feelings can change. In the words of Awatea, one day you might feel like you just want someone to get the death penalty. Another you might want healing.
My personal feeling, as someone who hasn’t been victimised in any major criminal way, is that I wouldn’t want to negate and invalidate victims who want to see the people who hurt them get hurt in return. In my heart of hearts I think if someone hurt my family, I could likely want revenge too. But, and this is a big but, there would already be limits on that desire set by society. I couldn't torture someone. I couldn’t kill or maim them. To some extent, the justice system has to take a step back from those immediate feelings and ask what’s best for the whole of society.
So without saying wanting revenge is wrong or evil, I think by necessity we need to zoom out and ask “what kind of system produces the least possible pain and the most possible long-term good”. We know people who have committed crimes are also the most likely to be victimised by crime themselves. There's a cycle of violence in motion here. The only way out is to break some links in the chain and grant people dignity and possibility. The evidence we have suggests that a rehabilitative process like in Te Kōti o Timatanga Hou is far more likely to achieve real change.
The second, related, objection is that some people are violent and unpredictable and allowing them freedom is dangerous for wider society because it could result in more people getting harmed. Without pretending I have all the answers here, I'd note that people like James Gilligan still advocate for confinement in some cases, but with a focus on rehabilitation and a recognition of the confined person's humanity at its centre. Maybe that's hard to imagine. What I'm quite sure of though is that we need to imagine something different than the broken current system.
Thank you for this addition. I came to the comments looking to see whether this question - what about victims who want punishment - would be addressed.
I was sexually assaulted as a child. The paedophile assaulted a number of the girls in and around the commune we lived on, and he was eventually discovered. He was not reported to the police at the time. Parents claimed they were concerned about how the justice system would treat us, but I am cynical and believe that at least in part they were concerned about the negative publicity that would come to their way of life. However, when he was discovered, two family members of one girl beat him badly, including knocking out two of his teeth.
As a young adult, I reported it to the police. Eventually all the statements were collected, he plead guilty, and was sentenced to four years in prison.
He was a doctor - an anaesthetist (he drugged at least one of his other victims). He lived on a commune by choice - he would work from time to time to fund living there. He was not a drug user. He had been sexually assaulted as a child, but so were lots of people and we don't use it as an excuse to abuse others. (Violence as a result of abuse I understand - it's a lashing out - but he was a careful groomer, there was nothing impulsive about it. Compulsive, perhaps, but he had options and cash for treatment and he chose not).
His beating, and his sentencing to prison, were - are - both important to me. It's only a little bit about the punishment they inflicted. It's more that they were each recognising that a deep wrong had been done to me, to us. The beating told me at least some people there at the time were willing to show he was wrong, not just send him on his way (after which I know he abused at least 3 more girls). The prison sentence told me that society at large acknowledged the truth of what we'd said, the pain we had endured, the longer term harm it had done us, and that it was wrong.
I also had him struck off the medical record. After prison he still described himself as a retired doctor, so I know that stung, and - like knowing we had sent him to prison - it was for me an important part of regaining a sense of power and agency.
So there are many layers to having him sent to prison. The acknowledgement of truth and wrongness. The reclamation of power and agency. Tangible consequences for his wrong actions. And his name, in print, as a paedophile.
I don't know how these things could have been achieved to the same degree without the prison sentence. I cannot imagine a restorative justice process that would have been appropriate.
(Afterwatds: I doubted very much he would be rehabilitated. After he was released, I worked out where he was living and sent the news clippings to the principal of the local school. Maybe he will reform, I said. But please keep an eye out, please, just in case.
Now, my greatest relief lies in the knowledge that he's dead. I no longer need to worry i mighr pass him in the street. I am alive, he is dead. I would dance on his grave if I could be bothered to find it.)
Thanks for your comment Lucy. I think stories like yours are the strongest argument for retaining a more punitive system in some cases. I'd also note there is one group where the evidence suggests a "tough on crime" approach actually works: rich, white collar criminals. They're also the one group that routinely escapes "tough on crime" action.
I know you get this, but I'd also just say I draw a meaningful difference between crimes like the ones committed by this man and the large majority of crime, which is often committed out of desperation, or by people who've experienced what Khylee calls "deprivation and restriction of choice". There's little hope that just cranking up the punishment meter will work in those cases because it's really not like people are doing a cost-benefit analysis before committing a ram raid or whatever. It doesn't work.
Very much agree - but at the same time, I'm left with a sense of slight unease at saying I'm allowed to think it's right the person who committed a crime against me went to prison, but other people who experienced other crimes maybe shouldn't. I would want to hear from them too. But I'd also want to investigate whether there are other consequences any or all of us would find as validating as incarceration. Possibly there is and I just haven't thought of it.
And 100% agree on the imbalance between the treatment of so called "white-collar" criminals, and other types of crime.
I haven't been through what you have, but I have been the victim of violent assault and of burglary and here's the way I think about it.
If the teenage boys who attacked me had been convicted and sent to prison, it's very likely that this would have led to them becoming involved in gangs. That's just the way things work in NZ prison for Maori youth. When released, they would have committed more and probably worse violent crime and there would have been more victims. I might have had some satisfaction at knowing that justice had been served but this would have soured the moment I learned about the repeat offending.
The case of the burglary is also interesting. Some time later, I got a phone call from the police saying that they had "caught up with" the burglar. After leaving my house with my stuff, he'd sold it and used the money to buy drugs. He collapsed and was taken to hospital, then went through drug rehabilitation. He confessed the burglary to his therapist because he now felt remorseful, and then turned himself in to the police. He was ultimately discharged without conviction and got on with his life.
In both of these cases, I think if they'd gone to prison things would have been worse. I don't know what happened to the kids who assaulted me, because the police didn't find them, but prison and then gang life wouldn't have helped. If the burglar had gone to prison instead of drug rehabilitation, he likely would have committed more burglaries to fund his addiction.
Obviously these are completely different circumstances to yours, but that's my point. We tend to classify a whole range of different behaviours and circumstances as "crime" and then apply the same situation to all of them (I'm not at all suggesting that you are doing that, clearly you are not). It's like trying to treat cancer with antibiotics because it worked for a chest infection. I believe that the paedophile who assaulted you should have been removed from society in some way because he would otherwise remain a threat, but it would make no sense to do this to my burglar.
I have been following the story of Cindy Clemishire, the 12 year old victim of megachurch pastor Robert Morris. His enablers protected Morris and gave him a pulpit to build a billion dollar empire. Meanwhile for decades they silenced his victim and Cindy believes that she was not the only victim. In this case there needs to be consequences.
I don't want to completely close the door to the idea. I gather the programme they have at Rolleston prison has some successes. But for this paedophile in particular I thought it unlikely.
"Where do my rights end and someone else's rights begin?" is a question society has been struggling with for centuries. I don't think we're likely to come to a consensus anytime soon, but we should at least try something new.
Thanks for another great piece of writing Hayden. What I would want is for the person who committed the crime to really understand what they have done and what damage they caused and then be truly rehabilitated so they can have a better path in life. But I know this is difficult when so many people who commit crimes have terrible back stories, mental health issues, fetal alcohol syndrome, and even undiagnosed ADHD. If these things are spotted way back in childhood and then given the right support, there would probably be a reduction in crime. But no government seems to want to develop all of the screening, safety net systems and ongoing support required, right back to babyhood, including things like Te Kōti o Timatanga Hou. How can we get things to change?
It's so hard to get into the discussions with trying to make changes that feel like they're going to be a net-positive, because as soon as there's a single negative instance example that can be used it's going to suck all the oxygen out of the room and eliminate support for the big picture because of that one negative that happened. I don't actually know if the root policy direction was good or bad in the big picture, but all it took was one "Willie Horton" incident to drive enough fear that no politician is willing to allow any flexibility at all when discussing the incarcerated. Then feeding on that public fear it creates even more of an "us-vs-them" rather than a "figure out how we can all get better".
That's partly why I feel like focusing on the antecedents is probably the most politically palatable suggestion in here. If we could remove the sharpest edges of inequality, some of the hard discussions about prisons go away, because reducing poverty and housing precarity and properly funding mental health and addiction treatment etc will also just get rid of a heap of crime
Having tried to work in preventative measures in completely different circumstances, it's very hard to get support there as people aren't able to "see results", especially when you're putting in this work to prevent something bad from happening at some arbitrary time in the future. They can't see that negative that isn't going to happen in the future (and the future doesn't even know what you've done for them to prevent that from ever being visible to them) and thus don't give it the value it deserves. With the shorter and shorter attention spans and demands to see immediate results (people demanding pharmaceuticals at the doctor's, demanding immediate action from politicians, etc.) then it becomes even harder to generate that support to move these longer-term goals which take time to develop into the spotlight as the path forward.
Well that's depressing. Feels like we're stuck in our own cycle where the punitive system not working is just seen as more evidence that we need to keep making it more punitive
I too have never been a victim of crime, but I do feel like there isn't "one size fits all". Pearce described it well below. In many cases imprisonment, or imprisonment without rehabilitation just doesn't work. I do think a victim's desires should be taken into account, but maybe in terms of long-term impacts what they want may not be the best outcome.
This conversation reminded me about David's comments about Texas at the beginning of the article. From an early age I remember being appalled at the death penalty, and feeling like it was so hypocritical to say murder was wrong and then kill someone for it. I definitely don't feel punishment should "stoop to the same level" as the crime, and for many people punishment for one crime won't prevent others. I do also feel like in NZ (and probably all over the Western world) those in poverty are punished more than rich people, and all that does is increase the problem.
I am reading through all of your comments and fuck - not really a surprise, because it's *you* lot - but I am just stunned by the nuance, honesty and insight. Thanks for being here.
Agree with this. And just thought I'd share some feedback from Carmel Claridge, the convenor of Te Kōti ō Timatanga Hou, who's quoted in the article:
"Sitting in my little windowless office opposite Courtroom One I sometimes feel overwhelmed by the tsunami of trauma, grief, and unmet basic human need that washes up at my door.
The comments on the article have restored my faith that there are people out there who genuinely care about our homeless whānau and support the mahi of our Court."
So just want to say thank you to all of you for your thoughts. It's actually making a positive difference to the people doing the work, which is kind of incredible for a comment section tbh
I use to work for an NGO in Rotorua, and they ran weekly youth court, ‘Te Kooti Rangatahi’ this was for the likes of the kids that are involved in ram raids, and petty crime. They get the entire whanau involved, support services, social workers, and lawyers, the whole lot. It’s run exactly how the above one is, except it was held in a marae.
There was also another programme similar but it was for adults that had their first offence and were given a chance to change their circumstances with the support of services and not end up in prison. I think things like this need to be the norm, as our systems just are not good enough.
"If we make sure that people have a place to live, that they’re feeling safe, and they’ve got enough to eat, then parents’ ability to respond to their children is going to be enhanced. And as children grow, they will feel safer and more secure, and they’ll be able to potentially engage with other young people who are feeling safer and more secure.”
This This This, This all day long! "Parents should be doing" is the argument I hear so often these days, well if you REALLY mean that, here is how you get it.
Te Kōti ō Timatanga Hou sounds like a wonderful and working concept. Compassion rather than punishment, I wish more places practiced that.
The mention of teenage bootcamps - I have a friend who was put into one as a teenager nearly 20 years ago. She still has PTSD. I cannot fathom how they are still legal, other than they turn a good profit. Madness.
From someone I heard recently in the corrections system, paraphrased: "Everything here is designed to separate the inmates from any money they have, as much as possible." A story on the local news last night infuriated me, that local facilities had been forcing no-contact visits through videoconferencing - and having the gall to charge absurd rates in order to use the system.
I'm a bit embarrassed to say reading this made me a tad misty eyed. Thanks for this Hayden (and David)!
Empathy takes a lot of work, and it's quite frankly not a lot of fun. There's so much more satisfaction to be had in watching people "get what they deserve". I don't think it's so surprising that being "tough on crime" is so popular right now, especially with global politics as chaotic as they are. I'm glad there are places like Te Kōti ō Timatanga Hou that are trying to do better.
Was going to say the same 🫂 Hearing the hope of those who had none & their back-stories made me so so sad for the all the lost potential in young people who haven't had, and won't have, the chance these very few are getting. And knowing there are these good people out there making a real difference💞
+1 to the misty-eyed gang - I really want to be hopeful, I think many of us can imagine what it might be like coming from these circumstances and the lack of options 😕
My husband and I were just talking last night about an annoying situation at work we need to deal with. It’s so hard not to react to the behaviour with anger or frustration as a boss, but our mantra is “deal with the actual problem, not the symptoms”. We figure out why the behaviour is happening and deal with that. Magically, the behaviour usually goes away!
Getting other people to come up with their own answer to a problem is also far better than telling them what is going to happen. If they say what they’re going to do you have investment/buy in. Consequences are still important, but shouldn’t be the only thing. They don’t work alone, but we sure do think they should, even though we have been shown time and time again they don’t.
We try to do the same with our kids. It drives me crazy that we focus so much in schools on reading, writing, maths etc, but we don’t teach young people how to have difficult conversations, how to resolve conflict and that all behaviour is a symptom, good and bad, figure out why the behaviour is occurring. Knowing how to figure out what the actual problem is when symptoms arise is such a useful skill. Why do we choose not to teach people this from a young age?
It drives me CRAZY that we continue to choose to punish people for their behaviour over and over again without addressing the route problem from birth and are surprised that nothing changes. Ugh! 🤪
Thank you Hayden. Made me tear up and not because I’m sentimental but because I work in mental health and see the results of 1) child hood poverty and trauma, 2) know that incarceration does not work. I have a story, this is before I started working in mental health and nursing in ophthalmology. This was back in the day when the street gangs were rife in Auckland. We had the leader of one of these gangs, all of 18, admitted because he had a broken bottle shoved into his face damaging an eye and requiring numerous stitches to his face. It was coming up to Christmas and though he could have been discharged the consultant decided he should stay for Christmas and have a decent meal and room over his head. Young man asked me to cut his hair. I was nervous as he had a reputation but decided why not. During the process I felt long scars on his scalp. I asked him if he had been in a car accident. No, he replied. If he annoyed his mother she would drag a screwdriver over his head. I just about held it together but not quiet. Forgot boundaries and gave him a massive hug. There was a brilliant outcome at the time as he married his pregnant girlfriend and a got a job as an orderly at the hospital. This was fifty years ago and he taught me so much about the power of empathy and a hug. Still working part time and remembering the lesson taught when I was so much younger. Lessons for life come from the most unexpected places. Remember that if nothing else. Your teacher could be a street kid with scars running down his head. Bless you, wherever you may be. Now there are tears
I was planning on sitting down today and unsubscribing (is that the word?) from the three charities I support as my partner is losing his job. But after reading this, I just can't do it. One of the charities is David Letele's gym in Auckland for the poor and desperate. The charity donations almost feel like theyshould rank among my necessities, rather than somewhere in the list just before or just after "takeaway cofffee treat" which is where I'd thought of them and I imagine most people do. A completely prunable optional expense. Really? I can't beleive that was my default attitude
🫂 The power of words eh? Hayden knows how to get us in the feels! Being on a fixed income, I look at keeping my donations etc. as the takeaway coffee, or delivered pizza, I forgo so I can afford the few I have chosen to support. Hope your partner gets another job 🤞
If anyone ever gets a chance to do jury service, take it up. It was the first time I’d been exposed to the justice system and got to see the mechanisms in motion, and it was an eye opener (it was a 5 week trial). To hear that these new court systems are in place and are working gives me a glimmer of hope.
I do worry about simplistic people like Mark Mitchell being in charge though. How’s that gang patch ban going?
You've really floored me this morning Hayden, wow. Brilliant piece and I appreciate your follow up comment here regarding the victims which we cannot forget in all this.
Maybe I'm too pragmatic but locking people up in a place that concentrates violence, begets reoffending and with no agency to advocate for themselves (it's all done through lawyers and the courts?) seems set up to fail wider societal cohesion? I understand for serious crimes and dangerous criminals that we need to segregate them to protect potential victims but that's not the majority of offenders if I'm to understand correctly. Most offenders don't spend years planning their heist either, it's generally a split decision that they live to regret but had little thought in processing at the time. Surely tunnelling such offenders through an educational or rehabilitative system makes long term sense not just financially but to build a sustainable society of productive citizens, aka tax payers 😅
It would take a heck load of long term thinking which politicians seldom display (but it's especially bad in NZ, holy moly, we have this sickening belief we have to vote the old government out "for a change" so nobody ever achieves much 😩) but imagine if crime rates started going down because potential criminals had OPPORTUNITIES to CONTRIBUTE to society rather than rot in a prison? Like Cora at her cafe job 😊
I understand there's money to be made profiting from prisons but I'm saying that's crap and we shouldn't chase that model. I think once again we can easily objectify and discount a group of people: "offenders", but when we look at individual cases, like our artist Paul, it's harder to not see the humanity that leads to said offending. That moment in time that a poor decision was made and changed everything irrevocably for the worst, a criminal record follows you around after all.
This is one of the most incredible pieces I’ve read in such a long time. Every New Zealander needs to read this and understand just how hard it is to break the cycle of poverty, violence, addiction etc.
I’m sharing this with everyone I know, especially those who are responsible for this current government.
As a victim of heinous crimes, meaning I'm a survivor of child rape, adult rapes, gang rape and being strangled. I wish to say that I read ALL the time in court cases where the rapist only gets 18 months or a maximum of 4 years. They take victims' entire lives away and only lose a short amount of their lives. These discussions are hell for victims of crimes like this. People who have not been victims of heinous crimes will never understand that these discussions around punishment are not a place to ask a victim to forgive their abuser. Of course with other crimes locking people up for long times is wrong. I was heavily involved in the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care and I spoke about how I am a victim because other victims never got any help, so they abused people instead and we need to get to the cause first. In the meantime, I wish for longer sentences for rapists in New Zealand.
The imbalance in punishment time both between the type of offence and often based on the perpetrator and/or victim seems like something to address, which then becomes difficult because you don't want to have a rigid policy crafted by politicians that's not going to fit the different situations nor extreme subjectivity that isn't trusted by the public to make respectable and equitable decisions. Finding that balance is something I wish we could experience in society, and as you say look to get that help and support to move individuals forward and build them up to be better so they're breaking any negative cycle and feel the support helping them be a positive part and influence on themselves and others. I hope those on the commission listened as you told them experiences most of them have likely never had themselves, so they can use that to better improve things going forward.
🫂 Personally never got on board with "forgiving your abuser" - unless and until the abuser takes responsibility for their heinous crimes & genuinely works to rehabilitate & learn new behaviours (with real help while they are rightfully removed from society so they cannot keep doing harm) then I couldn't do it.
In my opinion, the death penalty should be abolished worldwide. It doesn’t undo what was done. The threat of it doesn’t prevent heinous crimes from being committed. Innocent people are murdered through being wrongly convicted. It’s barbaric, outdated, biased and plain fucked up.
Really beautiful conception of what justice could be - it seems clear that if our goal is "a society without crime", the policy of incarceration has been an abject failure. A major obstacle in the US is the privatisation of prisons, and I'm deeply concerned by the presence of companies like Serco in Australia and NZ. A govt can hand management of a prison to the private sector because it claims to be more efficient, and the scope be narrow to begin with - but the fact of private sector involvement inevitably muddies the incentives of the system as a whole, and then a few steps down the road you arrive at a US system where prisoners are paid pittance to produce goods for their prison overlords. Why would these companies ever not fight tooth and claw against justice efforts that might reduce crime but also reduce their labour pool. It's dystopian. And the same logic applies in healthcare, and education - the goals should be general health and the learning of participants, not squeezing out dollars here and there. The infiltration of capitalist logic to all of these fields can have huge consequences. Huge rant, sorry
This is way too big a topic to cover in one feature, so partly out of necessity and partly out of the inescapable sense that I was going to bore some of you to death, I tried to keep it relatively narrowly focused on critiquing our current retributive, often violent systems of punishment.
But this article probably raises a bunch of questions I thought I’d try to talk a little about here if people are interested. The first, and easily most sympathetic retort to its central point is some version of “what about victims who want their abusers to be punished? What are their rights?”.
When I put this to prisoner advocates like Emilie and Awatea, both of whom have been victimised themselves in different ways, they point out not all victims feel the same way. Some would prefer a restorative process. Often those people aren't heard in this debate. I personally think of the queer community's response to the vandalism of the rainbow crossing in Karangahape Rd in Auckland. They asked for a restorative process. How often do those responses make headlines? Do we do enough to honour the wishes victims who don’t want retribution? Second, victims’ feelings can change. In the words of Awatea, one day you might feel like you just want someone to get the death penalty. Another you might want healing.
My personal feeling, as someone who hasn’t been victimised in any major criminal way, is that I wouldn’t want to negate and invalidate victims who want to see the people who hurt them get hurt in return. In my heart of hearts I think if someone hurt my family, I could likely want revenge too. But, and this is a big but, there would already be limits on that desire set by society. I couldn't torture someone. I couldn’t kill or maim them. To some extent, the justice system has to take a step back from those immediate feelings and ask what’s best for the whole of society.
So without saying wanting revenge is wrong or evil, I think by necessity we need to zoom out and ask “what kind of system produces the least possible pain and the most possible long-term good”. We know people who have committed crimes are also the most likely to be victimised by crime themselves. There's a cycle of violence in motion here. The only way out is to break some links in the chain and grant people dignity and possibility. The evidence we have suggests that a rehabilitative process like in Te Kōti o Timatanga Hou is far more likely to achieve real change.
The second, related, objection is that some people are violent and unpredictable and allowing them freedom is dangerous for wider society because it could result in more people getting harmed. Without pretending I have all the answers here, I'd note that people like James Gilligan still advocate for confinement in some cases, but with a focus on rehabilitation and a recognition of the confined person's humanity at its centre. Maybe that's hard to imagine. What I'm quite sure of though is that we need to imagine something different than the broken current system.
Thank you for this addition. I came to the comments looking to see whether this question - what about victims who want punishment - would be addressed.
I was sexually assaulted as a child. The paedophile assaulted a number of the girls in and around the commune we lived on, and he was eventually discovered. He was not reported to the police at the time. Parents claimed they were concerned about how the justice system would treat us, but I am cynical and believe that at least in part they were concerned about the negative publicity that would come to their way of life. However, when he was discovered, two family members of one girl beat him badly, including knocking out two of his teeth.
As a young adult, I reported it to the police. Eventually all the statements were collected, he plead guilty, and was sentenced to four years in prison.
He was a doctor - an anaesthetist (he drugged at least one of his other victims). He lived on a commune by choice - he would work from time to time to fund living there. He was not a drug user. He had been sexually assaulted as a child, but so were lots of people and we don't use it as an excuse to abuse others. (Violence as a result of abuse I understand - it's a lashing out - but he was a careful groomer, there was nothing impulsive about it. Compulsive, perhaps, but he had options and cash for treatment and he chose not).
His beating, and his sentencing to prison, were - are - both important to me. It's only a little bit about the punishment they inflicted. It's more that they were each recognising that a deep wrong had been done to me, to us. The beating told me at least some people there at the time were willing to show he was wrong, not just send him on his way (after which I know he abused at least 3 more girls). The prison sentence told me that society at large acknowledged the truth of what we'd said, the pain we had endured, the longer term harm it had done us, and that it was wrong.
I also had him struck off the medical record. After prison he still described himself as a retired doctor, so I know that stung, and - like knowing we had sent him to prison - it was for me an important part of regaining a sense of power and agency.
So there are many layers to having him sent to prison. The acknowledgement of truth and wrongness. The reclamation of power and agency. Tangible consequences for his wrong actions. And his name, in print, as a paedophile.
I don't know how these things could have been achieved to the same degree without the prison sentence. I cannot imagine a restorative justice process that would have been appropriate.
(Afterwatds: I doubted very much he would be rehabilitated. After he was released, I worked out where he was living and sent the news clippings to the principal of the local school. Maybe he will reform, I said. But please keep an eye out, please, just in case.
Now, my greatest relief lies in the knowledge that he's dead. I no longer need to worry i mighr pass him in the street. I am alive, he is dead. I would dance on his grave if I could be bothered to find it.)
Thanks for your comment Lucy. I think stories like yours are the strongest argument for retaining a more punitive system in some cases. I'd also note there is one group where the evidence suggests a "tough on crime" approach actually works: rich, white collar criminals. They're also the one group that routinely escapes "tough on crime" action.
I know you get this, but I'd also just say I draw a meaningful difference between crimes like the ones committed by this man and the large majority of crime, which is often committed out of desperation, or by people who've experienced what Khylee calls "deprivation and restriction of choice". There's little hope that just cranking up the punishment meter will work in those cases because it's really not like people are doing a cost-benefit analysis before committing a ram raid or whatever. It doesn't work.
Very much agree - but at the same time, I'm left with a sense of slight unease at saying I'm allowed to think it's right the person who committed a crime against me went to prison, but other people who experienced other crimes maybe shouldn't. I would want to hear from them too. But I'd also want to investigate whether there are other consequences any or all of us would find as validating as incarceration. Possibly there is and I just haven't thought of it.
And 100% agree on the imbalance between the treatment of so called "white-collar" criminals, and other types of crime.
I haven't been through what you have, but I have been the victim of violent assault and of burglary and here's the way I think about it.
If the teenage boys who attacked me had been convicted and sent to prison, it's very likely that this would have led to them becoming involved in gangs. That's just the way things work in NZ prison for Maori youth. When released, they would have committed more and probably worse violent crime and there would have been more victims. I might have had some satisfaction at knowing that justice had been served but this would have soured the moment I learned about the repeat offending.
The case of the burglary is also interesting. Some time later, I got a phone call from the police saying that they had "caught up with" the burglar. After leaving my house with my stuff, he'd sold it and used the money to buy drugs. He collapsed and was taken to hospital, then went through drug rehabilitation. He confessed the burglary to his therapist because he now felt remorseful, and then turned himself in to the police. He was ultimately discharged without conviction and got on with his life.
In both of these cases, I think if they'd gone to prison things would have been worse. I don't know what happened to the kids who assaulted me, because the police didn't find them, but prison and then gang life wouldn't have helped. If the burglar had gone to prison instead of drug rehabilitation, he likely would have committed more burglaries to fund his addiction.
Obviously these are completely different circumstances to yours, but that's my point. We tend to classify a whole range of different behaviours and circumstances as "crime" and then apply the same situation to all of them (I'm not at all suggesting that you are doing that, clearly you are not). It's like trying to treat cancer with antibiotics because it worked for a chest infection. I believe that the paedophile who assaulted you should have been removed from society in some way because he would otherwise remain a threat, but it would make no sense to do this to my burglar.
Feels weird to 🩷 this but I thank you for sharing your story with us 😔
Paedophiles are a whole separate issue I think. I don't believe they can be rehabilitated. I totally agree with, and understand what you say.
I have been following the story of Cindy Clemishire, the 12 year old victim of megachurch pastor Robert Morris. His enablers protected Morris and gave him a pulpit to build a billion dollar empire. Meanwhile for decades they silenced his victim and Cindy believes that she was not the only victim. In this case there needs to be consequences.
I don't want to completely close the door to the idea. I gather the programme they have at Rolleston prison has some successes. But for this paedophile in particular I thought it unlikely.
Whew
"Where do my rights end and someone else's rights begin?" is a question society has been struggling with for centuries. I don't think we're likely to come to a consensus anytime soon, but we should at least try something new.
Thanks for another great piece of writing Hayden. What I would want is for the person who committed the crime to really understand what they have done and what damage they caused and then be truly rehabilitated so they can have a better path in life. But I know this is difficult when so many people who commit crimes have terrible back stories, mental health issues, fetal alcohol syndrome, and even undiagnosed ADHD. If these things are spotted way back in childhood and then given the right support, there would probably be a reduction in crime. But no government seems to want to develop all of the screening, safety net systems and ongoing support required, right back to babyhood, including things like Te Kōti o Timatanga Hou. How can we get things to change?
It's so hard to get into the discussions with trying to make changes that feel like they're going to be a net-positive, because as soon as there's a single negative instance example that can be used it's going to suck all the oxygen out of the room and eliminate support for the big picture because of that one negative that happened. I don't actually know if the root policy direction was good or bad in the big picture, but all it took was one "Willie Horton" incident to drive enough fear that no politician is willing to allow any flexibility at all when discussing the incarcerated. Then feeding on that public fear it creates even more of an "us-vs-them" rather than a "figure out how we can all get better".
That's partly why I feel like focusing on the antecedents is probably the most politically palatable suggestion in here. If we could remove the sharpest edges of inequality, some of the hard discussions about prisons go away, because reducing poverty and housing precarity and properly funding mental health and addiction treatment etc will also just get rid of a heap of crime
Having tried to work in preventative measures in completely different circumstances, it's very hard to get support there as people aren't able to "see results", especially when you're putting in this work to prevent something bad from happening at some arbitrary time in the future. They can't see that negative that isn't going to happen in the future (and the future doesn't even know what you've done for them to prevent that from ever being visible to them) and thus don't give it the value it deserves. With the shorter and shorter attention spans and demands to see immediate results (people demanding pharmaceuticals at the doctor's, demanding immediate action from politicians, etc.) then it becomes even harder to generate that support to move these longer-term goals which take time to develop into the spotlight as the path forward.
Well that's depressing. Feels like we're stuck in our own cycle where the punitive system not working is just seen as more evidence that we need to keep making it more punitive
I too have never been a victim of crime, but I do feel like there isn't "one size fits all". Pearce described it well below. In many cases imprisonment, or imprisonment without rehabilitation just doesn't work. I do think a victim's desires should be taken into account, but maybe in terms of long-term impacts what they want may not be the best outcome.
This conversation reminded me about David's comments about Texas at the beginning of the article. From an early age I remember being appalled at the death penalty, and feeling like it was so hypocritical to say murder was wrong and then kill someone for it. I definitely don't feel punishment should "stoop to the same level" as the crime, and for many people punishment for one crime won't prevent others. I do also feel like in NZ (and probably all over the Western world) those in poverty are punished more than rich people, and all that does is increase the problem.
Such a good article, thank you for putting your time into making this information available.
I am reading through all of your comments and fuck - not really a surprise, because it's *you* lot - but I am just stunned by the nuance, honesty and insight. Thanks for being here.
Agree with this. And just thought I'd share some feedback from Carmel Claridge, the convenor of Te Kōti ō Timatanga Hou, who's quoted in the article:
"Sitting in my little windowless office opposite Courtroom One I sometimes feel overwhelmed by the tsunami of trauma, grief, and unmet basic human need that washes up at my door.
The comments on the article have restored my faith that there are people out there who genuinely care about our homeless whānau and support the mahi of our Court."
So just want to say thank you to all of you for your thoughts. It's actually making a positive difference to the people doing the work, which is kind of incredible for a comment section tbh
I use to work for an NGO in Rotorua, and they ran weekly youth court, ‘Te Kooti Rangatahi’ this was for the likes of the kids that are involved in ram raids, and petty crime. They get the entire whanau involved, support services, social workers, and lawyers, the whole lot. It’s run exactly how the above one is, except it was held in a marae.
There was also another programme similar but it was for adults that had their first offence and were given a chance to change their circumstances with the support of services and not end up in prison. I think things like this need to be the norm, as our systems just are not good enough.
"If we make sure that people have a place to live, that they’re feeling safe, and they’ve got enough to eat, then parents’ ability to respond to their children is going to be enhanced. And as children grow, they will feel safer and more secure, and they’ll be able to potentially engage with other young people who are feeling safer and more secure.”
This This This, This all day long! "Parents should be doing" is the argument I hear so often these days, well if you REALLY mean that, here is how you get it.
Dr Melanie is cool. Really liked talking to her
Te Kōti ō Timatanga Hou sounds like a wonderful and working concept. Compassion rather than punishment, I wish more places practiced that.
The mention of teenage bootcamps - I have a friend who was put into one as a teenager nearly 20 years ago. She still has PTSD. I cannot fathom how they are still legal, other than they turn a good profit. Madness.
From someone I heard recently in the corrections system, paraphrased: "Everything here is designed to separate the inmates from any money they have, as much as possible." A story on the local news last night infuriated me, that local facilities had been forcing no-contact visits through videoconferencing - and having the gall to charge absurd rates in order to use the system.
I'm a bit embarrassed to say reading this made me a tad misty eyed. Thanks for this Hayden (and David)!
Empathy takes a lot of work, and it's quite frankly not a lot of fun. There's so much more satisfaction to be had in watching people "get what they deserve". I don't think it's so surprising that being "tough on crime" is so popular right now, especially with global politics as chaotic as they are. I'm glad there are places like Te Kōti ō Timatanga Hou that are trying to do better.
Was going to say the same 🫂 Hearing the hope of those who had none & their back-stories made me so so sad for the all the lost potential in young people who haven't had, and won't have, the chance these very few are getting. And knowing there are these good people out there making a real difference💞
Was a bit misty eyed too Joe!
+1 to the misty-eyed gang - I really want to be hopeful, I think many of us can imagine what it might be like coming from these circumstances and the lack of options 😕
I’m so glad you’re talking about this.
My husband and I were just talking last night about an annoying situation at work we need to deal with. It’s so hard not to react to the behaviour with anger or frustration as a boss, but our mantra is “deal with the actual problem, not the symptoms”. We figure out why the behaviour is happening and deal with that. Magically, the behaviour usually goes away!
Getting other people to come up with their own answer to a problem is also far better than telling them what is going to happen. If they say what they’re going to do you have investment/buy in. Consequences are still important, but shouldn’t be the only thing. They don’t work alone, but we sure do think they should, even though we have been shown time and time again they don’t.
We try to do the same with our kids. It drives me crazy that we focus so much in schools on reading, writing, maths etc, but we don’t teach young people how to have difficult conversations, how to resolve conflict and that all behaviour is a symptom, good and bad, figure out why the behaviour is occurring. Knowing how to figure out what the actual problem is when symptoms arise is such a useful skill. Why do we choose not to teach people this from a young age?
It drives me CRAZY that we continue to choose to punish people for their behaviour over and over again without addressing the route problem from birth and are surprised that nothing changes. Ugh! 🤪
Totally agree with you Natalie!!
Thank you Hayden. Made me tear up and not because I’m sentimental but because I work in mental health and see the results of 1) child hood poverty and trauma, 2) know that incarceration does not work. I have a story, this is before I started working in mental health and nursing in ophthalmology. This was back in the day when the street gangs were rife in Auckland. We had the leader of one of these gangs, all of 18, admitted because he had a broken bottle shoved into his face damaging an eye and requiring numerous stitches to his face. It was coming up to Christmas and though he could have been discharged the consultant decided he should stay for Christmas and have a decent meal and room over his head. Young man asked me to cut his hair. I was nervous as he had a reputation but decided why not. During the process I felt long scars on his scalp. I asked him if he had been in a car accident. No, he replied. If he annoyed his mother she would drag a screwdriver over his head. I just about held it together but not quiet. Forgot boundaries and gave him a massive hug. There was a brilliant outcome at the time as he married his pregnant girlfriend and a got a job as an orderly at the hospital. This was fifty years ago and he taught me so much about the power of empathy and a hug. Still working part time and remembering the lesson taught when I was so much younger. Lessons for life come from the most unexpected places. Remember that if nothing else. Your teacher could be a street kid with scars running down his head. Bless you, wherever you may be. Now there are tears
What a beautiful story.
Thank you for sharing
I was planning on sitting down today and unsubscribing (is that the word?) from the three charities I support as my partner is losing his job. But after reading this, I just can't do it. One of the charities is David Letele's gym in Auckland for the poor and desperate. The charity donations almost feel like theyshould rank among my necessities, rather than somewhere in the list just before or just after "takeaway cofffee treat" which is where I'd thought of them and I imagine most people do. A completely prunable optional expense. Really? I can't beleive that was my default attitude
🫂 The power of words eh? Hayden knows how to get us in the feels! Being on a fixed income, I look at keeping my donations etc. as the takeaway coffee, or delivered pizza, I forgo so I can afford the few I have chosen to support. Hope your partner gets another job 🤞
Great piece as always, HD.
If anyone ever gets a chance to do jury service, take it up. It was the first time I’d been exposed to the justice system and got to see the mechanisms in motion, and it was an eye opener (it was a 5 week trial). To hear that these new court systems are in place and are working gives me a glimmer of hope.
I do worry about simplistic people like Mark Mitchell being in charge though. How’s that gang patch ban going?
This is an incredibly beautiful, and useful piece... xx
You've really floored me this morning Hayden, wow. Brilliant piece and I appreciate your follow up comment here regarding the victims which we cannot forget in all this.
Maybe I'm too pragmatic but locking people up in a place that concentrates violence, begets reoffending and with no agency to advocate for themselves (it's all done through lawyers and the courts?) seems set up to fail wider societal cohesion? I understand for serious crimes and dangerous criminals that we need to segregate them to protect potential victims but that's not the majority of offenders if I'm to understand correctly. Most offenders don't spend years planning their heist either, it's generally a split decision that they live to regret but had little thought in processing at the time. Surely tunnelling such offenders through an educational or rehabilitative system makes long term sense not just financially but to build a sustainable society of productive citizens, aka tax payers 😅
It would take a heck load of long term thinking which politicians seldom display (but it's especially bad in NZ, holy moly, we have this sickening belief we have to vote the old government out "for a change" so nobody ever achieves much 😩) but imagine if crime rates started going down because potential criminals had OPPORTUNITIES to CONTRIBUTE to society rather than rot in a prison? Like Cora at her cafe job 😊
I understand there's money to be made profiting from prisons but I'm saying that's crap and we shouldn't chase that model. I think once again we can easily objectify and discount a group of people: "offenders", but when we look at individual cases, like our artist Paul, it's harder to not see the humanity that leads to said offending. That moment in time that a poor decision was made and changed everything irrevocably for the worst, a criminal record follows you around after all.
This is one of the most incredible pieces I’ve read in such a long time. Every New Zealander needs to read this and understand just how hard it is to break the cycle of poverty, violence, addiction etc.
I’m sharing this with everyone I know, especially those who are responsible for this current government.
As a victim of heinous crimes, meaning I'm a survivor of child rape, adult rapes, gang rape and being strangled. I wish to say that I read ALL the time in court cases where the rapist only gets 18 months or a maximum of 4 years. They take victims' entire lives away and only lose a short amount of their lives. These discussions are hell for victims of crimes like this. People who have not been victims of heinous crimes will never understand that these discussions around punishment are not a place to ask a victim to forgive their abuser. Of course with other crimes locking people up for long times is wrong. I was heavily involved in the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care and I spoke about how I am a victim because other victims never got any help, so they abused people instead and we need to get to the cause first. In the meantime, I wish for longer sentences for rapists in New Zealand.
The imbalance in punishment time both between the type of offence and often based on the perpetrator and/or victim seems like something to address, which then becomes difficult because you don't want to have a rigid policy crafted by politicians that's not going to fit the different situations nor extreme subjectivity that isn't trusted by the public to make respectable and equitable decisions. Finding that balance is something I wish we could experience in society, and as you say look to get that help and support to move individuals forward and build them up to be better so they're breaking any negative cycle and feel the support helping them be a positive part and influence on themselves and others. I hope those on the commission listened as you told them experiences most of them have likely never had themselves, so they can use that to better improve things going forward.
🫂 Personally never got on board with "forgiving your abuser" - unless and until the abuser takes responsibility for their heinous crimes & genuinely works to rehabilitate & learn new behaviours (with real help while they are rightfully removed from society so they cannot keep doing harm) then I couldn't do it.
In my opinion, the death penalty should be abolished worldwide. It doesn’t undo what was done. The threat of it doesn’t prevent heinous crimes from being committed. Innocent people are murdered through being wrongly convicted. It’s barbaric, outdated, biased and plain fucked up.
Really beautiful conception of what justice could be - it seems clear that if our goal is "a society without crime", the policy of incarceration has been an abject failure. A major obstacle in the US is the privatisation of prisons, and I'm deeply concerned by the presence of companies like Serco in Australia and NZ. A govt can hand management of a prison to the private sector because it claims to be more efficient, and the scope be narrow to begin with - but the fact of private sector involvement inevitably muddies the incentives of the system as a whole, and then a few steps down the road you arrive at a US system where prisoners are paid pittance to produce goods for their prison overlords. Why would these companies ever not fight tooth and claw against justice efforts that might reduce crime but also reduce their labour pool. It's dystopian. And the same logic applies in healthcare, and education - the goals should be general health and the learning of participants, not squeezing out dollars here and there. The infiltration of capitalist logic to all of these fields can have huge consequences. Huge rant, sorry