Criminal Justice Reform road trip

Eugene Ryder – Black Power Gang Member & Social Activist

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.
Criminal Justice Reform road trip

Road Trip Day 1&3

1 Comment

CRIMINAL JUSTICE REFORM Road Trip

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.

Lies that divide us, The Engineering of Consent

04 The Engineering of Consent – Part 4

How Fashion Became Fashionable

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”.

Lies that divide us, The Engineering of Consent

04 The Engineering of Consent – Part 3

You’re Going to Love This!

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.

Lies that divide us, The Engineering of Consent

04 The Engineering of Consent – Part 2

1 Comment

Bernays Convinced Women to Smoke

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.

Lies that divide us, The Engineering of Consent

04 The Engineering of Consent – Part 1

How free am I really – to “make up my own mind”?

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

Freedom from the Inside

01 – Meditation & Mindfulness in Prisons

For the past year or more, some friends from Meditation New Zealand and I, have been running Meditation & Mindfulness programs in Auckland’s maximum security prison at Paremoremo.

People ask, “what’s it like working with criminals?”  I find it very disconcerting how we, as a society, tend to ‘dehumanize’ criminals. Even our justice system tends to do this. Creating an ‘Us and Them’ mentality.   Can we do better? Yes!

Crime deserves punishment but prisoners also need reforming otherwise we pay the price.  Currently, prisons serve as ‘criminal higher education’.  When people leave prisons they have often been trained in criminal behavior, feel some anger towards society for their treatment under the penal system and often are more hardened.

Is there anything that we can or should be doing to make it so that the recidivism rate for released inmates is dramatically lowered? So that we are creating a safer and more humane society?

In this series, we will be exploring this subject and looking for real ways to achieve this.

Greed & Envy, Lies that divide us

03 Greed & Envy – Part 1

The cultivation of greed and envy in the public at large was consciously promoted beginning in the mid-1920’s.  These two qualities were the fuel for the economic engine which was to see a rapid expansion for well over half a century. But has it really been in the interest of humanity?

“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.” – Paul Mazur – Lehman Brothers (1920’s)

“For at least another hundred years we must pretend to ourselves and to everyone that fair is foul and foul is fair; for foul is useful and fair is not. Avarice and usury and precaution must be our gods for a little longer still. For only they can lead us out of the tunnel of economic necessity into daylight.” – John Maynard Keynes (1930) – One of the most influential economists of the last century.

“The modern economy is propelled by a frenzy of greed and indulges in an orgy of envy, and these are not accidental features but the very causes of its expansionist success. The question is whether such causes can be effective for long or whether they carry within themselves the seeds of destruction.” – E.F. Schumacher – Economist and Philosopher

Greed & Envy, Lies that divide us

03 Greed & Envy – Part 2

“If human vices: such as greed and envy are systematically cultivated, the inevitable result is nothing less than a collapse of intelligence. A man driven by greed or envy loses the power of seeing things as they really are, of seeing things in their roundness and wholeness, and his very successes become failures.” – E.F. Schumacher – Economist and Philosopher

“I suggest that the foundations of peace cannot be laid by universal prosperity, in the modem sense, because such prosperity, if attainable at all, is attainable only by cultivating such drives of human nature as greed and envy, which destroy intelligence, happiness, serenity, and thereby the peacefulness of man.” – E.F. Schumacher – Economist and Philosopher

“A person who is not disturbed by the incessant flow of desires—that enter like rivers into the ocean, which is ever being filled but is always still—can alone achieve peace, and not the man who strives to satisfy such desires.” – Bhagavad-gita 2.70