A new program is tackling a sober reality for NZ’s Maori, who make up 15% of the country’s population but half of those behind bars

For the most part Te Ao Mārama looks just like the other low to medium security units at Waikeria prison. Sixty cells surround a central yard on three sides. On the fourth is a dining hall, behind that the meeting areas and offices. The perimeter fence is lined with coils of barbed wire, over which fantails dart back and forth, pecking at the grass.



Here, however, pou whenua (traditional posts) which have been carved by inmates, rise from the ground along with the ageing basketball hoop. Visitors pass through not just the sliding grey security fence, but also the ornate gateway, or waharoa. For the prisoners, the experience is untypical too, with just about every part of the rehabilitative program underpinned by Māori principles, or tikanga Māori.

Te Ao Mārama (World of Light) is one of five units around the country that make up the Te Tirohanga, or Focus, program. Together they represent a small attempt to tackle a huge problem: the alarmingly disproportionate quotient of indigenous people locked up in New Zealand prisons.

With 8,500 prisoners among a national population of 4.5 million, New Zealand ranks as one of the highest jailers in the developed world. But as has been repeatedly highlighted in reports by the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, the Māori component is staggering. While those who identify as Māori make up about 15% of the New Zealand population, the corresponding figure behind bars is more than 50%. Among women, for whom there is no Te Tirohanga option, it is higher still, at 60%.

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The most recent data suggests more than six of every 10 Māori prisoners will be back inside within 48 months. At its core, the rehabilitation-focused approach of Te Tirohanga is an attempt to interrupt the tendency for jails to act as recruitment centres for gangs and incubators for further criminality.

“Let me explain it to you like this,” says Jay, leaning his hand on a table covered in flax in the unit’s craft room. “When I got here, I walked in the gates, got a powhiri [formal welcome], and stood up in front of 60 men to tell them where I was from. I couldn’t say that in Māori, so that really made me want to get in touch with my Māori side, learn my whakapapa [ancestry].”

Jay (not his real name), who is nearing the end of the six-phase, 18-month program, says he has gained “a better understanding of things, knowing who my people are, where my mother’s roots lay. Suppose you can’t really go anywhere without knowing where you come from, eh? Sort of just stabbing the dark before I come to this unit. No purpose. Now I’ve got a vision for what I want to do, where I want to be in life.”

It is not exclusive to prisoners with Māori blood. “Any culture can come here and learn, but they learn under the Māori environment,” explains a warden at the unit. One non-Māori, with pale complexion and ginger hair, says he joined the program because he had been living in a Māori community. He had only been at Te Ao Mārama for a few weeks but already it had “changed the way I see things”.

Hundreds of Waka Ama crew perform the haka on the beach to celebrate Waitangi Day in Waitangi, New Zealand. Photograph: Sandra Mu/Getty Images

As evinced in the All Black haka, the Air NZ koru or the powhiri for tourists, New Zealand enjoys a popular image of indigenous and settler cultures comfortably integrated. The impact of colonisation is, of course, much more complicated. Numerous breaches by the state of the Treaty of Waitangi, the document signed between the British crown and leaders of iwi, or tribes, in 1840, saw swathes of land, in many cases the traditional tūrangawaewae, or “place to stand”, forcibly taken from Māori. Waves of urbanisation amplified the tendency for generations of Māori to grow distanced from their iwi, language and culture. Part of the ambition of a program such as Te Tirohanga is to restore that cultural link.

“Some of these guys, when they come here, they actually have a very distorted view of what it is to be Māori, and those distorted views often justify offending behaviour,” says Neil Campbell, the director of Māori for the Department of Corrections, citing the work by Māori health academic Sir Mason Durie.

Nowhere are those identity distortions, in Campbell’s terms, more apparent than in gangs, and the scale of affiliation to the Maori-dominated Mongrel Mob and Black Power gangs is inked in tattoos across the men’s bodies at Te Ao Mārama. Such groups have thrived in lower socioeconomic parts of New Zealand, and are widely associated with organised criminality.

“A copybook classic distorted view of being Māori might be, ‘we come from a warrior race, we don’t take any shit from anyone, if I want something I take it’,” says Campbell. “Another distortion might be ‘women from our culture sit down, shut up and don’t say anything – and if they do they get a smack in the face.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest New Zealand enjoys a popular image of indigenous and settler cultures comfortably integrated. Photograph: Ross Setford/AP

When prisoners arrive “in an environment like this”, says Campbell, waving his pen above his head, “we turn that distortion around. We actually come from a matriarchal culture that isn’t about suppressing women. In fact, women lead all the events. Men do some of the show-pony stuff, but women are coordinating everything.”



The Te Tirohanga approach emphasises from the outset the involvement of the offender’s whānau in the rehabilitation process, says Campbell. And here whānau means more than the “one-dimensional idea” of family: “it’s not limited to biological relations or even associates, it’s broader than that, and it’s specific about supporting positivity ... we say in environments like this you must include and involve whānau in as many aspects of the intervention as possible.”

That relationship often involves iwi, or tribes, many of which have become increasingly well-equipped and willing to play a role in the rehabilitation process, says Campbell, having agreed settlements with the government over long-standing grievances relating to breaches of the Treaty of Waitangi.

Early results suggest Te Tirohanga, introduced in 2014 to replace its Māori Focus Unit predecessor, is on track to meet or better the overall Corrections department target of a 25% reduction on the 2011 rate of reoffending by 2017, says Campbell.

In pursuing that target, the obvious focus, “whether we like or not”, says Campbell, must be “all these brown people that whakapapa to an iwi somewhere ... If this is such a great program, why are we limiting it to the five whare [units]? Why aren’t we running it in the community? Why don’t women have access to it?”

Marama Fox, co-leader of the government-supporting Māori party has called for a tikanga-based unit to be introduced at Mt Eden Remand prison in Auckland, a facility that has been at the centre of controversy in recent weeks, relating to organised inmate violence, contraband, and the performance of Serco, the UK-based multinational that operates Mt Eden, one of two private prisons in New Zealand.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Nowhere are the identity distortions more apparent than in the Maori-dominated Mongrel Mob and Black Power gangs. Photograph: Xavier la Canna/AAP

The minister of corrections, Sam Lotu-Iiga, says that while there are no firm plans to upscale Te Tirohanga, “we are looking at expanding some of the Māori programs. What we’re doing is taking an evidence-based approach to rehabilitation.” Policy, he says, is informed by an “investment approach, which is what taxpayers demand”.

Asked about criticisms by the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, which says not enough is being done by the government, Lotu-Iiga insists progress is being made. “I think we’re seeing things change over time. I think we’re seeing education achievement levels for Māori improve over time.”

He points too, to the government’s ongoing treaty settlement process. “I’m certainly proud of our record – the number of treaty settlements that we’ve put through over the last seven years. Certainly, that is something that needs to be addressed; I think most New Zealanders would agree, we’re trying to redress some of the grievances that have gone on.”

Why are Māori so disproportionately locked up? “The greatest weight of the answer is quite straightforward,” comes the answer from a 2008 Corrections report, which attempts to address the “alarming degree” of the imbalance. “Over-representation in the criminal justice system is very much what could be predicted given the combination of individuals’ life experiences and circumstances, regardless of ethnicity.”

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In just about every statistic recording disadvantage – be it unemployment, poverty, health, education or family breakdown – Māori figure disproportionately.

The same report concedes, however, that Māori face a deeper challenge. “Analysis of data, from apprehension through prosecution to conviction and finally sentencing, confirms that Māori are more likely to be apprehended and more severely punished than non-Māori.”

While governments have rejected charges of institutional racism, the report acknowledges that Māori face a disadvantage in encounters with police and the judiciary that extends beyond their statistical representation. “At key stages there is evidence of a degree of over-representation that relates to ethnicity,” it notes.

In 1988, racial bias in policing and the courts was identified as a crucial factor by lawyer Moana Jackson, who undertook more than two years of research in compiling a report for the NZ justice department, The Māori and the Criminal Justice System: A new perspective: He Whaipānga Hou.



One of the central, and certainly the most controversial, recommendations by Jackson was the establishment of a parallel Māori justice system. Geoffrey Palmer, then justice minister in a Labour government, welcomed many of the report’s suggestions but remained “totally opposed to the setting up of a separate legal system for Māori”, saying, “equality under the law is the greatest hallmark of our legal system and we can’t tolerate any departure from it.”

Today, Jackson is completing a follow-up to the 1988 report, this time commissioned by his iwi, Ngāti Kahungunu. “Sadly, not a great deal has changed in 25 years,” says Jackson in a phone interview.

He believes New Zealand attitudes on crime and punishment have grown tougher, away from “a political belief, and indeed a public belief, in rehabilitation and reform” that existed in the 80s.

“I think there is quite a social shift, a social hardening, around criminal offending,” says Jackson. It stems in part, he argues, from “the ideology of individual responsibility – if you do something wrong you’ve got to get done over. The [introduction of] the private prison is just another manifestation.”

It is impossible to separate, says Jackson, the place of Māori in the prison system from the impact of colonisation, and the disputes around the meaning of the Treaty of Waitangi.

You can’t look at a young Māori man in prison and divorce him from the history of what has happened to our people

“As one kaumatua [elder] said, you can’t look at a young Māori man in Paremoremo prison and divorce him from the history of what has happened to our people. And that is an argument that I’ve always believed – knowing that history and the forces that shape our people’s existence doesn’t excuse the behaviour, particularly of some of our young men, who sometimes do appalling things, but unless we have that context to work from then we can’t make the shifts that are necessary.”

The judiciary has seen one significant Māori innovation in recent years, however, with the introduction of Ngā Kooti Rangatahi, marae-based courts for young Māori. The courts, an adjunct of the youth court system, have grown in number from one in 2008 to 13 in 2015.

Jackson supports the initiative. “While still part of a system that is not Māori, they sit on the marae, they operate according to tikanga, and they work with young offenders across a whole range of areas ... What it does is provide young people who might be in strife with a greater chance of being supported so they don’t get into further strife,” he says.

“It’s still in the experimental stage, there are problems with it, but it does indicate that Māori with the right training and support can reclaim the mechanics, if you like, of dealing with our own people.”

Jackson hopes the Rangatahi courts will ease concerns about the development of a genuinely parallel system. “It shows that it’s possible for Māori to do that, and it can be an exercise of rangatiratanga [sovereignty], and it hasn’t led to the collapse of western civilisation ... Some might say it will make it harder: you’ve already got the Rangatahi courts, you don’t need anything else, but to me it’s just a step, an important step, along the way.”

The justice minister, Amy Adams, is positive about the impact of the Rangatahi courts, noting an encouraging ministry evaluation in 2012 and a fuller, updated assessment due in the next few months. While there are currently no plans to expand the model beyond youth, says Adams, a separate initiative, the Matariki court, based in the district court in Kaikohe, Northland, aims to properly integrate the offender’s whānau, hapū [sub-tribe] and iwi in the process. “The Matariki court has been operating for five years and further cases are being referred to it, which is indicative of the support and positive outcomes of the program,” she says via a spokesperson.

Jackson notes “the willingness of Māori communities in particular to believe now, which they didn’t believe to the same extent in the 1980s, that they have not only the ability but the right to work in this area and to see change.

“But in the end the fundamental ... exercise of tino rangatiratanga [full sovereignty] prior to 1840 always included necessarily the right to regulate the conduct of the members of iwi and hapū ... That was denied our people after 1840 and the mantra arose that there should be only one law for all, but it was a law that was brought here from somewhere else, and it was never our law.

“While I think progress has been made – I can’t deny that – I think it’s unwise to believe that we’re necessarily at the end of what I call the treaty journey, or even that we’re necessarily doing better than other indigenous peoples.”

If there was ever a time we can start to turn this thing around it’s now

Back at Waikeria, Neil Campbell divines a pivotal moment. “I honestly believe if there was ever a time we can start to turn this thing around it’s now. Right now we’ve got this window of opportunity. If we don’t mobilise now, we’ll miss that, and all these cultural interventions and the like, that we’ve got the momentum up into, that’s probably when my pessimism would come in,” he says.

“If we’re not going to do it now, when there’s a willingness and an eagerness in government, there’s a willingness and eagerness in the highest levels of the organisation, there’s a willingness and eagerness among iwi, then when? It’s one of those times when all the planets have lined up, and you’ve only got so much time until the planets separate. It could be another 30 years before that rolls round again.”