Billy Macfarlane – Former Drug Lord Turned Social Activist.
We went to Rotorua to meet with Billy Macfarlane, a former drug lord who had received a 14 year sentence but was paroled after serving 5 years. Billy turned his life around after learning Te Reo Maori behind bars and began teaching in the maximum-security prison at Paremoremo. He was later transferred up North and was eventually asked by the management of the prison there to become a teacher and mentor for young men who were locked up.
We were invited onto the Marae and were able to interview Billy and some of the people he works with. There was a traditional welcome and one of the local elders spoke for us. Billy and his people sang a waiata and my daughter and I responded with a waiata from our spiritual tradition invoking blessings and love upon us all.
After his release, Billy designed and has been running a course he calls Pūwhakamua, and is affiliated with the Apūmoana Marae. It is designed to be an intense six-month programme that will wrap Māori protocol around men who have led a life of crime in the hope they will turn their lives around. The course is followed up with a further six months of checks to ensure the participants are staying crime-free. However there are also many non-criminals who are taking the course to reconnect with Maori culture.
Billy says “Our tikanga has the power to change young Maori men’s lives and I say ‘watch this space’ because change is coming for these young fellas.”
On Thursday the 30th Aug morning we spent time with Dr. Kim Workman, the “godfather” of criminal justice reform in NZ. He is a really amazing man. Some points from his interview:
In a typical law and order debate, political parties increasingly promote policies which appeal to our ‘gut instincts’ i.e. they feel and sound right, but may not be supported by evidence. Since 1987 New Zealand general elections have relied increasingly on law and order policies which attract that kind of reasoning. One has to ask whether those political messages are evidence-based, and whether they will reduce crime.
A “tough on crime’ war developed, with the two main political parties outbidding one another in a public muscle-flexing exercise, aimed at attracting the support of the general public.
The pressure on the judiciary continued after the introduction of the Sentencing Act 2002. Dr Don Brash promised even more when launching National’s law and order policies in 2004:
“I don’t intend to recite a lot of statistics to make my case. We all know that New Zealand has a terrible record. It is in front of us each day . . . Every day the media carry stories of horrendous crimes”.
Interviewing Kim Workman at the Just Speak office.
In this instance, penal policy was announced without any reference to fundamental statistical data; including a proposal to abolish parole; a proposal that was estimated to increase the prison population by about 50 per cent.
What was public opinion at the time? After Dr Brash’s law and order speech, delivered at a Sensible Sentencing Trust conference, a TV1 opinion poll showed that respondents favoured parole with safe guards, rather than the abolition of parole. In an opinion poll conducted for TV3’s Campbell Live, 56 per cent favoured community punishments rather than spending more money on prisons.
Research at that time consistently showed that the general public overestimated their own risk from crime; overestimated the proportion of crime involving violence; overestimated the risk of reoffending; and underestimated the severity of sentences. On the other hand, they did not think sentences were too lenient once acquainted with the facts. Media coverage did nothing to address this. Indeed, the media was a primary source of public misinformation.
The ACT party recommended that New Zealand follow the policy examples of the United States; where imprisonment rates increased 700 per cent from 110 per 100,000 of population in 1975 to 764 in 2011. That view subsequently found its expression in the promotion by ACT of New Zealand’s own “three strikes” legislation; the Sentencing and Parole Reform Act 2010. All this attention to ‘tough on crime’ legislation, and the Bail Amendment Act 2013, has driven the prison rate up, in the face of declining crime rate.
He also spoke about the disproportionate representation of Maori in prisons
Hon. Chester Burrows at the Ministry of Justice
On Thursday afternoon we interviewed the Hon.Chester Burrows – the newly appointed Chair for the advisory committee on criminal justice reform. He is a former police officer, lawyer and as a National Party MP, held portfolios as the Minister for Courts, Associate Minister of Justice and Associate Minister of Social Development which he said were all issues he “believed in”.
He said the country needed to be smart, not tough on crime but for that to happen the politics needed to be taken out of the debate.
“I think a big chunk of the public would consider themselves to be tough on crime and the big challenge is to put some information in front of them and get them to think about the issues,” he said.
“What we’ve had in the past is we’ve had evidence based suggestions and they’ve run up against emotive responses and it’s very difficult to have a conversation like that.”
He said a lot was working well in justice but a lot of it was “inefficient and not particularly safe”, and that “Not many people in the New Zealand public actually have confidence that the justice system is working.”
“The political challenge is to confront the crude rhetoric of tough-on-crime/soft-on-crime and say, ‘Ah-ah, I ain’t buying into that, I’m about what’s effective.’ Because what’s effective keeps people safe.”
He has blamed political parties’ self-interest in staying in power for the lack of progress in law and order reform. As examples you have stated:
An example was the three strikes law introduced by National and ACT under the previous government, which you said National never supported but was introduced to appease their confidence and supply partner.
“Three strikes was never part of National’s plan, it came up as a political move because they needed a confidence and supply partner and that was it. I never liked it, I sent that back.
“Unfortunately it was a party vote and you fall under the whip on those occasions and that’s what happened.”
“Most politicians know that restorative justice is the key to reducing crime, but are happy to talk tough on sentencing because it gets them votes.
“The fact is law and order is one of the big four people vote on alongside health, education and the economy. So what you find is someone who wants to stay in power or someone who wants to get into power… will run over and push that button.”
And it’s politics he fears will get in the way of real reform.
Speaking to the new advisory group – “The thing that could kill it is the politics around it. It is thankfully about putting up evidence-based solutions. Now if the politicians want to kill it with rhetoric, over to them. But let’s shift the blame to them.”
Many of those are young people who have their lives ahead of them, but the system is letting them down. He expressed the view that many young people who fall into a life of crime are just as much victims as those they offend against.
“You send them to a criminal university and give them a gang affiliation,” he says, adding that it’s even worse for those who are remanded in custody before they get to face a judge.
“When they finally get to court they are then released on time served, so they go out with no rehabilitation, no therapy, no one watching them, not on parole – just pissed off and poor, and they’re going to commit more crime.”
“If you get to know these people, they’ve all been offended against. Why the hell do you think people offend in this abhorrent way? Because it’s a learned behaviour.”
He got into trouble for saying a lot of the victims in the center of the criminal justice system are standing in the dock
He acknowledges it’s an unexpected view to have as a former National Party MP. He says even as a cop, his views sometimes clashed with those of his peers.
“They thought I was a bit of an oddball.” But the evidence doesn’t lie.
“Restorative justice works better than anything else, and yet if you promote it, you’re seen as being soft on crime.”
Prisons should be safe and effective; just like the rest of the justice system.
There is little point in sending somebody to jail in desperate need of reform, rehabilitation, therapy and assistance, only to release them back on to the street with none of those interventions taking place.
To phrase it another way, people must come out of prison in better shape than when they went in. If we have a prison population with high ratios of mental health diagnosis, illiteracy, substance dependence, and brain injury, and we hold them for a year or so and then release them with no intervention, that is not safe. Not safe for the offender, their victims or the public in which they live. If recidivism runs at about 60 per cent, that is not effective.
The ignorant like to describe prisons as holiday camps. Being locked up in a cell, probably with somebody to you don’t know, or hate, or are desperately afraid or of at least have zero feeling for, in a small space no bigger than most domestic bathrooms, is no holiday. The table you eat at or write at folds down over an open toilet where you cellmate had a crap 10 minutes ago. The hours spent in this cell may range from ten to twenty-three hours per day. Movement is severely limited as is the use of communications and reading and writing materials. Therapy and treatment are sporadic, and leisure-time is virtually nil. These critics must have some interesting holiday experiences.
Future prison populations will be radically reduced from where they are today, because social policy will deal with the obvious health, education, work and welfare disparities which are indicative if not determinative of future offending and incarceration. Sentences will probably be shorter because they will be resourced well enough to provide effective interventions that will dissuade and rehabilitate offenders sufficiently to live crime free post-release. Many sentences will be completed outside of prison in communities. Prisons will be much smaller and involve the public much more than presently, who will take some responsibility for effective reintegration on release. Prisoners will from custody to freedom by staged transitional accommodation, employment, supervision and mentoring.
Wednesday morning 29th Aug we interviewed Prof. John Pratt – probably NZ’s leading criminologist. He spoke about some very interesting realities concerning NZ’s criminal justice system which I am bullet-pointing here.
The UK, Australia and NZ have a far more punitive approach to criminal justice when compared with the Nordic restorative approach.
NZ is even more punitive than Australia or the UK when comparing the very similar rates of crime and with the length of prison sentences.
Harsher sentencing and tough bail and remand laws have not reduced recidivism – this is proof that the punitive approach is not working?
He spoke about the rise of “Penal Populism”. The crime rate has been falling for years and yet the prison population and corrections spending has ballooned. Since crime rates are falling, logically, there should be less public fear of crime, less political preoccupation with crime and fewer concerns about prison measures being too lenient, but this is not the case. A significant contributor to this situation is the media which has little interest in balanced reporting of crime and punishment. When they sensationalise crimes it has an effect of creating a climate of fear and anger, which is capitalized on by politicians who want to out-bid each other to be “Tough on Crime” to get elected.
Prof. John Pratt at home.
He mentioned that the media can have the effect of both shaping, solidifying and directing public sentiment and opinion on crime and punishment, while simultaneously reflecting it back as the authentic voice(s) of ordinary people. Could you give some examples of how this has occurred?
He recounted that when he informed a Nordic prison official, that almost 60% of inmates in NZ prisons had literacy issues, the official asked “how can you have a modern society with such high functional illiteracy?”
He also spoke in a very compelling way about the effect colonization and systemic bias has had on Maori and is the major underlying cause of why only 15% of the NZ population is Maori, but they represent slightly over 50% of the prison population and the figure is even higher for women.
Judge Andrew Becroft at the Children’s Commission office
On Wednesday afternoon we interviewed Judge Andrew Becroft, NZ’s Commissioner for Children and formerly the head of the Youth Court. Some of the issues he spoke about are below:
NZ youth justice system is hailed as world-leading with emphasis on change, rehabilitation, community involvement and positivity and yet it’s as if at age 18 it all changes and we turn into one of the most punitive, and punishment based judgmental systems in the world. He questions how two such systems can exist in the one land?
He spoke of areas that should be of principle concern to not create a pipeline from childhood to an adult offender.
Criminal justice starts before birth, in NZ there are up to 3,000 Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) births per year. How many children and adults have we imprisoned that have significant brain impairment? The Ministry of Health has been inactive for too long on this issue. Need health warnings on alcohol packaging. TV campaign warning on alcohol consumption during pregnancy.
First 1,000 days of child’s life – the battle to keep them out of jail will be won or lost. They may suffer from trauma and neglect, especially children of prisoners.
We have been called the most un-fathered generation in the history of the world. Impulse control at age 3 or 4 is single most important factor and can be taught.
Twin pillars – alcohol/drugs and family violence. If we took alcohol out of youth and adult courts, maybe 70% of the charges would disappear. We wimped out, as a country, of the law commission recommendations to reduce alcohol availability to young people. Alcohol is sometimes cheaper than water. Warriors with Woodstock alcohol label on their sleeves. The very product that is associated with criminal offending.
We have to address the shame of enduring overrepresentation of indigenous people in justice system. Three areas of focus need to be:
Child poverty material disadvantage. High risk for poor life outcomes including offending. Most serious offending comes from a background of material poverty and profound disadvantage.
Earlier intervention would be profoundly effective.
The enduring colonization and modern-day systemic bias and most of us are part of a system even if we know it or not, that demonstrates systemic bias.
The role of education on crime. “Better health, better attendance at school, better performance at school, less involvement with the criminal justice system. The downstream effects ought to be enormous.”
Youth court stats show us that appearances have dropped about 12% for the general population, but Maori youth appearances are up 23%. We know there is a problem with disparity, so why does the gap persist?
Numbers are coming down for Maori, but not as quickly as for Europeans, so the over-representation continues.
Secondly, it’s quite a small group numerically.
It’s troubling if we label all Maori being a Maori problem. Most Maori children thrive and do well. It’s not a youth-justice issue; it’s an issue in every system of government, health or education. We see that over-representation, and we have to own this. Is there any country in the world where the colonisation process has been other than bad for children? That’s the reality. It’s been bad for indigenous children. There’s a combination of systemic discrimination, unconscious bias. They are the big issues, and the stats are replicated in all other areas. The challenge for our country is to look at it system wide. How can we do better for our indigenous children?
“I think we will have a revolution of our understanding of our young people in the next 20 to 30 years, especially from the criminal justice point of view. I suspect history might judge us quite harshly. We judge those in the Victorian era of having a very crude approach to child welfare … well I think a lot of what we’re doing right now might be judged as almost, putting it crudely, sending a blind person to prison because they can’t see.”
You have expressed concern at the growing inequality in New Zealand. The 1960s and 70s in the New Zealand had an enormous middle class, and we weren’t too conscious of extremes of wealth. It’s a different New Zealand now. We know that inequality is growing. And I think that’s an issue that we must face as a country.” Please speak to this point and specifically to:
Poverty as a high risk factor for offending.
The relative poverty in New Zealand is pretty profound where we have pockets of a third generation permanent underclass.
Firstly I need to apologize for not keeping this blog up to date but I have been literally run off my feet. We traveled through Gisborne and Napier, meet a number of people and interviewed Denise O’Reilly, the well-known social activist and one of the original Black Power members. We then went to Wellington and attended the Summit on Criminal Justice Reform, and have met with heaps of really interesting people, and done a number of interviews including Harry Tam, one of the original Mongrel Mob members who is a social activist and has worked on policy in government for 20yrs. We also interviewed the Minister of Justice, Andrew Little. If you would like to see photos and notes from this period you can check my FaceBook page https://www.facebook.com/Allan.Tibby.page/
Today is our 7th day in Wellington. We were able to interview Eugene Ryder, a Black Power gang member and social activist.
Mike Hinchey, Eugene Ryder and Allan Tibby
Eugene is a truly amazing human being. His father was a minister of the Church and hearing that, most people would therefore, assume he was raised in a caring home environment, was well educated, and had a very clear idea of right and wrong. So, learning that he has had over 50 convictions, and spent years in prison, the average person would ask “What happened?”
Interviewing Eugene behind Dive Wellington. He is an avid diver
Eugene revealed to us that while his father preached one thing in church, his home life was very different. His father began sexually abusing him when he was 10 years old and he and his siblings experienced a great deal of physical violence. The family also struggled financially and so from an early age. Eugene took to petty crime so that he could have the basic things required for schooling, like pencils, and food. Because of his home life. He was quite disturbed and dealt with prejudice or bullying with the only “tool in his toolbox”, his fists. This led to his being put into state care at age 15, where he was again subjected to an environment of violence and sexual abuse by the people who ran the three state-run boy’s homes he was put into. Eugene developed an understanding that the physical and sexual abuse he had been exposed to was the norm and was part of life and especially of Maori life.
Feeling very isolated and alone he sought the shelter, companionship, acceptance and a sense of family that was part of belonging to a gang. He attempted to join the notorious Black Power gang at age 16 and robbed a bank to try and farce track his membership. He ended up being tried as an adult and sentenced to four years in an adult prison. Later in life, he found that many gang members had the same backgrounds as himself and had also suffered violence within their families, had participated in petty crimes in an attempt to acquire basic school supplies which other kids had and to simply have something to eat. So many of them were also sent to Borstal where they were also subjected to both physical violence and sexual abuse. The newly established Royal Commission of Inquiry Into Historical Abuse In State Care will look into the abuses committed within these boys homes, and from what we have learned, will potentially reveal what is a great shame for New Zealand society.
By the time Eugene was 45 years old. He had received a degree in social work but had already engaged for many years in attempts to uplift his community. He is a very inspiring guy to be around, and much loved by his community. He invited us earlier in the morning to the Trust which he works for – CART. They do a lot of work for Maori and also for the Black Power community. It was a very moving event held at their office, but it needs a little back story.
Ranga Tuhi – Artist and CART Trustee
One of the trustees of CART had formally spent many years in prison and was a wonderful artist. His name was Ranga Tuhi. Upon getting out of prison he formally studied art at University. He was a gifted artist, but was not very well educated and had great difficulty been able to function on the campus environment. When he was assigned to study a particular subject, he did not know how to use the index system in the library and so would sometimes take up to a week to search through the shelves of the library to find the book he was meant to read. He felt too ashamed to ask for assistance, and so made friends with the janitors who would allow him to work late into the night to search for the books he needed. One of the things Ranga did was to work with disadvantaged children by teaching them art. Before his death, he looked for someone who could take over the work he was doing with the young people. He asked another energetic young Maori writer, Genisis Te Kuru-White, known as TK to take over from him and lead the young people he worked with. TK is a highly creative storyteller and was a runner-up in the recent Pikihuia Awards as a writer of short stories and Maori.
Genisis Te Kuru-White (TK), his wife and his Auntie
So today TK came to Wellington with his family from Whakatane to join CART and take up the mantle of Ranga Tuhi. There was a very moving ceremony with TK and his family on one side of the room and the CART family on the other. During the ceremony. TK’s family now and trusted him to the people of CART who would now take care of him and support him in his new life.
Eugene addressing the meeting. TK wearing the kakahu or Maori cloak and holding his baby daughter
TK’s father, Paora, is one of the founding members of Black Power and has been a leader in the organization since its inception he is a very amazing man and a true lead. We had a long conversation with him and learned that back in 1992 he initiated the move for the members of Black Power to reconnect with their Maori roots and culture.
TK’s father, Paora, a respected leader of the Black Power Movement.
He has continued that worked tirelessly for over 20 years while seeking to uplift the members of his community. He has actively promoted the need not to take drugs or alcohol, and to live, responsible and caring lives. TK is a living example of what his dad has sought to do. We were invited to come and visit with the family in Whakatane and to learn more about their work there. So we look forward to doing that quite soon.
It may be a few days before I can update you again as the next couple of days are pretty full-on. Tomorrow we are interviewing Prof. John Pratt, possibly NZ’s leading criminologist, and Judge Andrew Becroft, the former head of the Children’s Court and currently the Commissioner for Children. Then the next day we interview Kim Workman, a former policeman, head of corrections, and the godfather of Criminal Justice Reform. We’ll also interview Chester Burrows, former MP and currently appointed to chair the advisory committee for the current government’s efforts at criminal justice reform. Then we make a mad dash to Rotorua where we will be interviewing Billy MacFarlane, a former drug kingpin and convict turned reformer and activist.
We are embarking on a road trip interviewing people about criminal justice reform in NZ for a documentary. We will also be attending the Criminal Justice Summit in Wellington and Porirua from Aug 20-22. we have interviews lined up with a number of people including the Minister of Justice Andrew Little, Kim Workman and others.
We started out in Hamilton on Wednesday 15th August, interviewing the leaders of the Notorious chapter of the Mongrel Mod. I have to say that these guys are incredibly brave to open themselves up and sit down with us. This was the 1st time they have ever been interviewed on camera.
We spent more than 2 hours with them on camera and learned a lot.
There are very common themes emerging from the group we spoke to last Saturday at the SIA Hui and talking to Mike and Larry. They all want to see some change in their life. They don’t want their children and grandchildren having to go through what they have been through. They want the dignity of being able to work and earn a decent wage to support their families. They want to engage with authorities to find a realistic path forward but are understandably cautious and skeptical of the government’s and society’s sincerity to deal with them honestly and with dignity. They are a little encouraged by the formation of the new criminal justice reform advisory group, an initiative of the Min of Justice, Andrew Little, but cannot figure out why the advisory group is filled with academics but no one representing gangs or people that “work at the coalface”. When they say that I immediately think of Harry Tam who has a 40-year affiliation with the Mongrel Mod but has also previously worked in government on policy for 20 years. There is a deep sense of frustration which is voiced as; “we are seen as the bloody problem but no one wants to engage us in the solution!”
I feel their pain when they say this and wonder if NZ is missing an opportunity by not engaging with them. These guys see a very dim future. There is currently a massive amount of new gang recruitment going on in NZ with young people. The older generation seems willing to embrace change, and if they are not engaged then there is the danger of things getting even worse than they were in the 1970’s and 80’s.
We traveled down to Gisborne yesterday – 6.5hrs of driving, are hoping to be able to join another gang hui today, but not sure we will be able to do that.
Up until this time, the idea of fashion and buying clothing because it was fashionable did not really exist amongst the ordinary public, it was only something which moved the wealthy upper echelons of society. But Bernays was about to change that. He was to introduce the idea that your choice of clothing had a great deal to do with expressing yourself as an individual and being an interesting person. And that you became powerful by fulfilling your(?) desires.
Many of the ideas and values that we have connected to ourselves and what we value have been “manufactured” by others and forced upon society through psychological manipulation. It is not really that we were unwilling to buy into these ideas, but as Bernays puts it, it was definitely the “engineering of consent”.
What Bernays was doing fascinated Americas corporations. They had come out of the war rich and powerful, but they had a growing worry. The system of mass production had flourished during the war and now millions of goods were pouring off production lines. What they were frightened of was the danger of overproduction, that there would come a point when people had enough goods and would simply stop buying.
What the corporations realized they had to do was transform the way the majority of Americans thought about products. One leading Wall Street banker, Paul Mazer of Leahman Brothers was clear about what was necessary. We must shift America, he wrote, from a needs to a desires culture. People must be trained to desire, to want new things even before the old had been entirely consumed. We must shape a new mentality in America. Man’s desires must overshadow his needs. And Eddie Bernays was just the man for the job.
Bernays set out to experiment with the minds of the popular classes. His most dramatic experiment was to persuade women to smoke. At that time there was a taboo against women smoking and one of his early clients George Hill, the President of the American Tobacco corporation asked Bernays to find a way to break it.
What Bernays had created was the idea that if a woman smoked it made her more powerful and independent. An idea that still persists today. It made him realize that it was possible to persuade people to behave irrationally if you link products to their emotional desires and feelings. The idea that smoking actually made women freer, was completely irrational. But it made them feel more independent.
We feel we are in control of our decision making and we are doing this autonomously – without outside influence. But are we? We are told repeatedly that we are “strong, independent, and free” to make choices, but this is a lie! A lie that causes much social division and much suffering.
Sigmund Freud’s nephew, Edward Bernays, was to introduce industrial America to the idea that the general public not only could, but should, be controlled and directed. He famously stated: “If we understand the mechanism and motives of the group mind, it is now possible to control and regiment the masses according to our will without them knowing it.”
Bernays is almost completely unknown today but his influence on the 20th century was nearly as great as his uncles. Because Bernays was the first person to take Freud’s ideas about human beings and use them to manipulate the masses. He showed American corporations for the first time how to they could make people want things they didn’t need by linking mass-produced goods to their unconscious desires
