Little Proposes, Middle New Zealand Disposes: If nothing else, the Justice Summit has shown Andrew Little what he is up against. The anger and hurt of Maori. The anxious attempts of various state institutions to meet the often contradictory expectations of their political masters. And last – but by no means least – the inescapable reality of “Middle New Zealand’s” veto: it’s indisputable power and its implacable determination to have the final say.
ANDREW LITTLE must be wondering whether his Justice Summit
was worth it. Encounters between practitioners of deliberative democracy and
participants in direct democracy are seldom trouble free. How could they be?
Deliberators are elected, while participants in direct democratic forums are
often self-selected, or, even worse, the delegates of special interest groups. By
the time the Justice Summit drew to a close it was very clear that the formal
practices of deliberative democracy and direct democracy’s roiling currents of
passion and conviction had only Little in common.
If nothing else, the experience will have shown Little what
he is up against. The anger and hurt of Maori. The radical programmes with
which the latter propose to empty the prisons of their disproportionate ethnic muster.
The anxious attempts of the various state institutions tasked with managing
crime and punishment to generate outcomes that meet the often contradictory
expectations of their political masters. And last – but by no means least – the
inescapable reality of “Middle New Zealand’s” veto: it’s indisputable power and
its implacable determination to have the final say.
That power was on full display in the opening hours of the
Summit when Jayne Crothall, whose three year old daughter, Brittany, was murdered
as she slept in 1997, was reported as breaking down in tears when a Maori woman
claimed Pakeha did not know what it was like to be victimised.
“This has been a horrendous summit for victims of crime”,
Crothall told the 700 Summit participants “People have been told they don’t
know what it is like to be a victim because they’re European. There have been a
lot of racist comments made. I have never heard so much racism.”
Sadly, it is Jayne Crothall’s words that Middle New Zealand
will take away from the Justice Summit. Her accusations of racism will be
amplified across the country by the Sensible Sentencing Trust who are also
likely to highlight the words of University of Canterbury criminologist, Greg
Newbold, who boycotted the whole event as a waste of time and told RNZ National
that if Little is serious about reducing the prison muster, then he should
“build more prisons and end double-bunking”.
Middle New Zealand: overwhelmingly Pakeha; gainfully
employed; living in their own homes; law-abiding and tax-paying; is temperamentally
impatient (if not contemptuous) of sociological and historical explanations for
Maori offending. To their ears, the arguments of academics and “experts” about
poverty and colonisation come across as sounding suspiciously like excuses.
Which is why nearly all of the evidence of Maori suffering
will have been, at best, half-heard by Middle New Zealand. At worst, it will be
taken as proof of the “Maarees’” manifest deficiencies as citizens. By
contrast, and simply because they chime so completely with their own
deep-seated prejudices, Jayne Crothall’s words will not only be heard, but they
will also be remembered and angrily repeated. Such is the power of Pakeha confirmation
bias.
The thing to remember about all of the colonial societies in
which the settlers have triumphed demographically, is that the
over-representation of the colonised in the criminal justice and prison systems
will be welcomed, consciously or unconsciously, by the settlers as proof that
their culture is still on top. Were only 15-16 percent of prison inmates Maori
(i.e. the muster matched the percentage of New Zealanders identifying as Maori)
a number (probably a distressingly large number) of Pakeha would interpret the
statistic as evidence that the Police and the Courts were not doing their jobs.
Of course, Andrew Little can’t say that: not if he wants his
party to win the next election. What’s more, the Labour-NZF-Green Government
cannot even be seen to be addressing the gross over-representation of Maori in
New Zealand’s prison system to aggressively. Middle New Zealand’s tolerance
threshold runs out at the notion of convicted criminals being rehabilitated
outside prison walls. They will accept intensifying rehabilitation efforts
behind bars, and many would accept the desirability of every prisoner having
their own cell. What they will not accept is criminals being “set loose in the
community” before they have demonstrated conclusively that it is safe to
release them.
That’s why Greg Newbold advised Andrew Little to “build more
prisons and end double-bunking”. Because he is shrewd enough (as both an ex-con
and an academic expert) to know that his is the only formula which Middle New
Zealand (the people who determine the outcome of general elections) is ready to
accept.
That Little gets this was illustrated by his last-minute
offer to hold a special summit for the victims of crime. It’s a terrible idea.
Such a gathering will, almost certainly, morph into a no-holds-barred display
of Middle New Zealand’s retributive instincts. Little will be ordered to keep
on doing everything that his just-concluded Justice Summit begged him to stop
doing. The racist arbiters of crime and punishment in New Zealand will
jubilantly exercise their political veto – and, God forgive them, Andrew Little
and Jacinda Ardern will comply.
This essay was
originally posted on The Daily Blog
of Friday, 24 August 2018.
