Sorry to those who are following this blog – it has been a while since my last post.  Have been really busy on a number of fronts, including working on the documentary I’m doing with Mike Hinchey on criminal justice reform.  Have had some wonderful meetings with some amazing people whom I am not at liberty to speak about just yet.

In early December I was invited down to Rotorua to cover the graduation of six participants in Billy McFarlane’s Pūwhakamua program – @tikangaaroro  https://www.facebook.com/tikanga.aroro

Billy has been facing huge obstacles in the running of his program. Despite the government’s sweeping justice reform which aims to reduce recidivism rates, and the support of judges who put offenders into Billy’s program as part of their parole conditions, Corrections was acting to block this.  They were prohibiting these parolees from attending the program the judges ordered them to attend. What??????  Billy fought this and  Corrections have been forced to apologise for banning offenders from a course designed to help rehabilitate them.  Totally messed up.

Check it out here on Maori TV https://www.maoritelevision.com/news/politics/corrections-forced-apologise-banning-offenders-course  and https://www.nzherald.co.nz/rotorua-daily-post/news/article.cfm?c_id=1503438&objectid=12094889&fbclid=IwAR18EsNIGeXrvcaNQ_MsAHXVxfqqxuPHzyzT9JxF1psi4tzQeakJL9lZwFo

I really encourage anyone who is moved by what Billy is doing to please support him in whatever way you can.  He is carrying a huge load, practically alone, with the incredible support of his partner Brownyn.

Back to the graduation – the guest speaker there was Brownie Mane.  Brownie was the former Black Power Taranaki leader who ordered the gang hit on Chris Crean in New Plymouth 20 years ago.  Chris was a witness to a brutal gang slaying and agreed to testify about it and so he was therefore murdered to prevent him testifying.  Brownie was convicted to life along with three others.  A couple of years ago there was a movie made about this murder called Resolve – https://www.stuff.co.nz/entertainment/tv-radio/94891316/resolve-chris-crean-remembered-as-courageous-in-tvnzs-latest-sunday-theatre   It’s a really good movie and worth the watch.

Brownie underwent a huge transformation and was granted parole about 2 years ago, after serving 19yrs.  A big part of his transformation was his reconnecting with his roots through tikanga and te reo programs.  He became an inspirational agent for change and worked with Corrections to give presentations in prisons.  He is an awesome man and has so much to share and give.

In a post on the Maori Prison Support Services’ Facebook page, Brownie described Crean as an “innocent man” and that his time spent behind bars was “nothing” compared to the pain he put the Crean family through. “There are no amount of apologies I can ever say to compensate this family for what I did,” Mane said. “I can never wipe up all the tears that have fallen by this family for their loved one so I will never be seeking forgiveness for what I’ve done.  “The 19 years I spent in prison may seem like a long time to some. In my view, this 19 years is nothing compared to my victim’s family. Even though it’s nearly been 22 years since this crime happened, I can only imagine that their pain and hurt is still very raw and that it must only feel like yesterday for them that this devastating event took place.”

Brownie’s presentation at the graduation ran for about an hour and was both brutal and riveting. Brownie absolutely shattered any idea of so-called “glory” attached to going to prison or joining a gang. It was one of the most moving presentations I have been privileged to witness. I’ll speak a little bit more about his presentation sometime soon.

As a result of meeting Brownie and developing a friendship with him, we traveled up north to spend some time with him and interview him for out documentary. One of the major “reveals” after our trip to Rotorua and the graduation there, was to learn that Brownie had been a major influence on Billy and was one of his mentors.

Before going down to Rotorua, I did a little research on Brownie, knowing that he was going to be there. That is when I stumbled upon the Facebook page of Stephanie Crean. Stephanie was two years old when Brownie ordered the murder of her dad Chris Crean. When the guys who were sent to kill Chris first came to his house and knocked on the door with weapons in hand, Chris came to the door with two-year-old Stephanie in his arms. The men fled but were ordered back to kill him even if it meant killing the baby in his arms.

Stephanie and her mom have undergone amazing personal transformations because of their deeply embracing the teachings of Lord Jesus Christ. This has led to both Stephanie and her mom actually forgiving Brownie and the other killers of Chris. But that is an amazing story. I’ll get to in my next post.

Thur 13 September 2018

Today we went up to Whangarei to meet and interview David Fisher, a senior writer for the NZ Herald.  David has been closely following the Criminal Justice Reform debate for some time and reporting on it in the Herald.

We meet at the Piggery 2^nd Hand Book Store (@piggerybooks) which was a really cool place run by his friend Chloe , a lovely lady who allowed us to shoot in her shop.

David is very well informed and you can read things he has written here – https://www.nzherald.co.nz/author/david-fisher/

Most of the people we have spoken with, including legal experts, academics, and people working on the ground, all speak of the crazy “race to the bottom” which political parties have engaged in over the past 15 years, trying to outbid each other for votes by promoting their “tough on crime” platforms. This has led to an extremely undesirable situation when New Zealand’s crime rate has been significantly declining, and yet the jails have been filling up at a faster rate and sentences have become much longer and more punitive. Many people who are interviewed feel less safe than they did 25 years ago and yet the murder rate has almost half over that period. This is largely being due to politicians and media sensationalizing crimes, particularly sentinel events, for the sake of votes or to increase their audience size.

The politicization of criminal justice is a very unintelligent way to deal with such a serious issue. We see that when the current government wants to try and seriously address the issue in order to make society safer, they are immediately attacked by the opposition and charged as being “soft on crime” which is a gross misrepresentation of the issue. David recently challenged the leader of the opposition, to prove his statement that longer and more punitive sentences reduce crime. Simon Bridges (the leader of the opposition) quoted a study that was done in Italy which turned out to disprove this reality, especially in the New Zealand environment. David wrote about this in an article titled – Simon Bridges’ ‘tough on crime proof’ — unpublished, not reviewed and doesn’t really back him up. I suggest you read it here – https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12116541

An extremely sensitive part of the conversation surrounding criminal justice reform is the huge overrepresentation of Maori in the system. While making up only 15% of the country’s population, they represent over 50% of the prison inmates. Of course, the very big and sensitive question is why? When you look at all the social indicators, Maori fall at the bottom of key statistics such as education, social support, health and employment. That alone should be very troubling for all NZ’s and we should be asking why this is and whether we as a society have any responsibility here.

When I asked David about this issue and about the systemic social bias, which began with colonization and continues up to today he responded with something which was deeply concerning. He stated that; “In the part of New Zealand where I live, it’s a community that’s predominantly pakeha, I think maybe 70 to 80% pakeha and 20 to 30% Maori, which is a higher percentage of Maori than many other parts of New Zealand. But there’s a town that’s 20 minutes drive away, where it’s reverse. If I were to sit down an 11-year-old boy from the other town next to my boy who’s 11, it would break my heart to say to that other boy, I’m really sorry, the chances that you’re going to finish school are so much lower than my son’s, it’s probably not going to happen. The chance of you going to prison is much higher. You’re going to die much younger. The opportunities that your children will have in life are going to be much, much less. Your chance of getting a job is lower, your chance of being unemployed is obviously much higher. The wage that you do earn, if you get a job, is going to be lower and your chance of owning a house, buying a house, it’s not very good, sorry. They only live 20 minutes apart, these kids. That’s obscene.”

I find that many of us can become too complacent, thinking that other people’s problems are theirs or the government’s to solve, and wanting to wash our hands of any direct or indirect responsibility for creating the society we live in, with its inequalities and imbalances. Definitely some serious food for thought.

This is also a really informative read – “Judge: Make New Zealand safer with shorter prison sentences, humane jails and less use of prisons.” https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12114971

On our 2nd day in Whakatane (Sat 08 Sept.) we were able to witness the fruit of the vision Paora (Black Power chapter leader) had back in 1992 when he decided that what was missing in the lives of the gang members and what could heal them was their Maori culture. Paora was not able to get the national leaders to buy into his dream at the time and so he took his own path of a very deep emotion into the culture and language he had not known as a child and young man growing up. We got to meet his elder son Raymond and next son Glenn (who has just come back from Australia), and hear from them what they witnessed as they grew up observing their father’s journey. They both spoke with great pride about what their father had given them, and how it had affected their lives. Now Paora and his sons play a unique role in sharing the deep traditions of their culture with their Marae and with the wider public in Whakatane.

Saturday morning was a regional junior rugby league tournament and festival. Teams of young players had come from around the region to Whakatane where the championship was held. In a tradition of the elders, the local young players along with Iwi leaders welcomed the different teams in the traditional way of their people.
Paora’s eldest son, Raymond, teachers kapa haka, taiaha, te reo Maori, and deeper culture to schoolchildren in Whakatane. He is incredibly dedicated to revitalizing the traditions and a deeper cultural understanding, especially with the young people, of the entire Maori culture. Today he led the young team members from Whakatane in a traditional welcoming of the other teams who are coming for the competition. They began by practicing at 7 am in order to be ready for the formal start of the program at 9 am.

While young boys performed a haka, C.K. (one of the BP younger generation we had interviewed yesterday, and who are setting a new course for the gang) performed the traditional challenge to the teams who were being welcomed. CK had learned the taiaha and how to perform the challenge from Raymond. CK concluded his challenge by placing a twig with leaves on the ground. Paora guided a young representative from the visitors to come forward and pick up the twig with leaves to show they had come in good faith. All the while, Raymond was leading the young boys from Whakatane in a challenging haka. One by one the visiting teams came forward and responded with their own haka. The Iwi elders then sang a welcoming waiata and Paora spoke in Te Reo Maori to welcome everyone. And an elder representative from the visitors responded and the games were declared open.

VIDEOS OF EVENT ON MY FB HERE –  https://www.facebook.com/Allan.Tibby.page/videos/2232918863606674/

It was very moving to see how a young man who was steeped in violent gang culture (Paora) who had this vision, and then dedicated himself over decades to not just familiarize himself, but to become deeply enriched with the intricacies of his lost culture, has gone on to make such a profound change in the lives of so many people. It is both truly inspiring and, if I were in government, I would really get behind and support as it clearly shows what can be done through vision and leadership.

Before leaving Whakatane, we went down to the beach at Ohope, and saw these amazing huge logs on the beach, which were carved with Maori design. Apparently, some local guy comes down to the beach and carves on logs that are washed ashore, and then when there are large tides and storms, they are picked up and washed to other parts of the coast. It was supercool to see.

Kingi is a criminal defence lawyer and youth advocate. Prior to starting as barrister, he worked for four years at the office of the Crown Solicitor for Auckland, Meredith Connell,  specialising in the prosecution of serious crime.  Kingi did a master’s degree at Harvard law school.

Super nice guy and very passionate about criminal justice reform with an emphasis on youth and preventing young Maori and Islanders from entering the “pipeline” which leads to a lifetime of offending and being locked up in our prisons.  Cool video of him here doing a TED Talk – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6A9ABdpibBw

We went to Hamilton to interview two incredible ladies, Nayda Te Rangi and Jane Stevens, who had formerly been connected with the Black Power and Mongrel Mob from a really early age.  They were also both involved in the Aroha Trust in Wellington in the 70’s, and their stories were included in an acclaimed book by Pip Desmond titled TRUST – A True Story of Women and Gangs.

Nayda’s partner was a Chapter President of the Mongrel Mob, but she eventually separated from him with her children to escape gang life and the cycle of Methamphetamine use of her partner and all the baggage that brought with it. She went on to put her children through school and returned to school herself. She graduated on the same day with one of her children.  She has written a paper for her masters titled “The Liberated Voice of Wāhine within a Gang Collective” and I would encourage you to read it online here – https://www.teipuwhakahauaa.co.nz/uploads/terangi/2016/1147_TeRangi2016.pdf  We interviewed her at the Waikato University where she is completing a degree and then went out to Ngaruawahia to interview Jane.

Jane and Nayda both share a history of experiencing institutional racism from a young age which is incredibly painful for young people. After enduring, then escaping, a childhood scarred with abuse, Jane found safety and security with the Aroha Trust, a work co-op set up by a group of women enmeshed in the gang scene. Wellington journalist Pip Desmond, herself a founding member of Aroha Trust, spent 11 years collecting the stories of the women involved and convincing them they needed to be told.

Jane told us a story she has shared with others before and which needs to be heard as it is a very common narrative amongst many people, both men and women, connected with gangs.

At 11 she was sexually abused by an art teacher. Two years later she was raped by a man in his mid-20s from a V8 gang. She was raped many times over the next decade – once by a gang associate but mostly by “respectable” men: a church worker, a St John Ambulance man who took her home from Girl Guides and a family acquaintance, among others. As a result, Jane went seriously off the rails, stealing, drinking, taking drugs, becoming violent. She was expelled from one high school for stabbing a classmate, then asked to leave the next after hitting a classmate.

“I was self-destructive, angry, I was just lashing out at the world, blaming myself for what had happened,” she says. “But at the time, and to this day, people never picked up on that, never looked at the reasons why I was acting that way.”

At 15, Jane began living at a halfway house run by youth worker Pip Desmond, who was little more than a teenager herself. When that didn’t work out and a brief time flatting was just as unsuccessful, 16-year-old Jane ran away to Wellington with a friend. There, her newfound freedom ended almost immediately when she was kidnapped by an older man she met at a pub. Jane was kept prisoner in his house for several weeks, during which time she desperately tried to get hold of Desmond, who had by then returned to Wellington and set up Aroha Trust.

Desmond finally made contact and, with the help of some of her Black Power connections, got Jane out. “Some of the boys came out and made the guy hand over my suitcases,” Jane recalls in Trust. “They did a big heavy on him. I remember thinking: wow, this is so cool having someone to stick up for me.”

It’s hard to understand how close contact with a group of widely feared and routinely violent men could be a good thing for such a vulnerable young woman, but Jane says it offered a measure of security. “For me, what was incredibly unsafe was mainstream society,” she says quietly. “Abuse came from people in positions of power, people who were supposed to be keeping me safe. Think about trying to report abuse of a parent or schoolteacher back then, or even now. You learn very quickly that you can’t tell anyone. Where do you go when the world that’s supposed to be safe for you is a place of danger?”

By comparison, living and working with the women of Aroha Trust – themselves all battle-scarred by tough upbringings, violence and cultural alienation – was “amazing”.

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.

https://youtu.be/rrEDUmKou_Q

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.”

Here is a link to a piece Maori Television did on Billy – https://www.facebook.com/maraetv/videos/1673383459406769/

It was a real honour to meet Billy and we will continue to stay in touch with him.

• “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.”

• “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.”

• “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.

• “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.”

• 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.

• 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 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.

• 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.

• 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.

• 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.

• 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?

• 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.