Ngati Hine Health Trust Restorative Justice Programme Launch

It is a pleasure to be here at the launch of a new Restorative Justice Service here in Whangarei.

I am pleased to have the opportunity to meet with you Kanohi ki te kanohi (face to face) to celebrate the beginning of this important new service for the Whangarei and Kaikohe Districts.

First I want to acknowledge our hosts – in particular Ngati Hine Trust Kaumatua – Kopa Tipene, Trust Chairperson Gwen Tepania-Palmer, tena korua; Chief Executive Rob Cooper – Tena Koe, and Trust General Manager, Mariameno Kapa – domo arigato gozaimas Sensei.

I would also like to acknowledge my Parliamentary colleague, MP Shane Jones, and also Julia Hennessy from the Crime Prevention Unit at the Ministry if Justice, Inspector Bruce Bird Acting District Commander Tim Clark – Chairperson of Restorative Justice Aotearoa, and the representatives of other community and government agencies and services here today to support this event.

Thank you all for attending this launch and showing your support for Ngati Hine's work in restorative Justice.

It is the relationships between agencies and groups that ensures that these processes have the best chance of achieving a positive effect in the communities that you work with.

Most importantly, I would like to acknowledge the Ngati Hine Health Trust for all of the hard work and effort they have put into getting us to this day, and in organising this launch.

It's great that you are willing to be one of the providers around the country who work alongside the Ministry of Justice to help provide restorative justice processes to the people of New Zealand.

I note that in Te Tai Tokerau, Ho-hou-rongo, the approach of justice through reconciliation, is a long-standing and favoured concept, and I am pleased that the Ministry has been able to support this.

I commend your efforts and I acknowledge your tradition of bringing this healing form of Justice to both victim and the offender.

So, I am confident this programme will link into your existing practices and experiences, and bring benefits for your whanau and your wider community.

Two recent retorative justice conferences concerning, and held on a marae, illustrate well the potential for healing, and in this case, cross-cultural healing, through the court-referred restorative justice process.

The conferences followed guilty pleas by three young men who had damaged an irreplaceable carving at the entrance to the Wharenui.

The carvings had been fashioned by a master carver from specially selected totara. They were unique and part of the heritage of the area.

Two separate conferences were held, at which the victims were represented by a kaumatua, a cultural adviser and two chaplains.

The first conference, involving one of the offenders, began with a karakia. The cultural adviser explained that balance was needed in the Maori world between taha tinana and taha wairua – the world of tangible objects and the world of the intangible or spirit.

The carvings, he said, represented ancestors and held many hidden meanings. There was history and genealogy in the carefully selected and crafted symbols in each carving. He used as analogy of computer icons, which have special meanings for those trained to read them.

The cultural adviser spoke of birds, which needed two equal wings to soar.

The physical wing, the tinana, of the carving might be patched, but the wairua or spiritual part had been seriously damaged and the bird was off balance.

The kaumatua explained that the carvings at the entrance were the assembly point for all who came to the marae. Once through them, visitors came under the protection of their host.

He said carvings had been repaired in the physical sense, but from a Maori perspective, the mauri (spiritual fullness) had been desecrated, and two new pou needed to be made.

The offender said he had no idea about the spiritual meaning of the carvings; and that before the conference he could "only see one wing".

Although he had been taught Maori stories at school, he had not known about the real meaning and deep significance of the carvings. He had learned through the restorative justice conference that they were more than just artworks. He said he was unable to find words to express the depths of his apology.

One of the chaplains said that participating in the restorative justice conference had lifted some of her grief, and that having it in the whare gave the process special significance.

Similar discussions took place at a second conference, involving to other offenders.

The cultural adviser made the point that people of different cultures have different kinds of art. Carvings are for Maori their "their Picassos".

One of the offenders apologised for his parting the damage to the carving, saying he knew how horrible his offending had been.

The experience had given him "a huge wake-up call". The other offender said he could not apologise enough foe what he did. He held no animosity towards Maori culture he said; the assault on the carving was random, and on the night any target would have done.
As part of the restorative justice conference outcomes, the offenders agreed to make reparation for their share of the physical damage to the carving, and to write letters of apology to the marae.

As many of you have been part of a community which has, for a very long time, supported this type of process and healing, you will no doubt be aware of this sort of positive outcome, and I know that the resulting benefits for the community are a great inspiration for being involved in restorative justice.

I now want to talk briefly about the broader context for the Government's plans for development in restorative justice.

The Growing Prison Population

As I know you are all well aware, the issue of the growing prison population that is at odds with a long term downward trend in overall recorded crime levels.

From a peak of 7, 6210 inmates in March 2006, forecasts indicate that the prison muster could be nearing 9,000 within five years. We now have the fourth highest imprisonment rate in the OECD.

Twenty years ago there were fewer than 3,000 prisoners, and in 1996 the number was about four and a half thousand. In addition to the obvious high social costs, this increase has put significant pressure on the Corrections system. I believe that many New Zealanders share my deep concerns about the burgeoning social and economic consequences of imprisonment.

And as I said, this increase has occurred within the context of decreasing crime over the last decade, when overall recorded criminal offences have declined by 13 percent. This decrease is even more striking if we factor in population growth: by that measure reported crime has fallen by 19 percent over the last decade.

A particular tragedy of New Zealand's high imprisonment rate is the high number of Maori in our prisons. Over half of all inmates are Maori, while Maori only make up about 15 percent of the total population. Any solutions that we put in place must be effective for Maori.

These are major problems that will not be resolved by any "quick fix" simplistic measures. However, our Government is determined to work with our communities for long-term sustainable solutions and today's event is very much part of that commitment.

Effective Interventions

The reasons for the growing number of prisoners are complex. Accordingly, there has been a significant amount of work carried out by a number of agencies, led by my justice officials, to help determine and understand the reasons for the increase; and importantly some of the options for addressing both causes and impacts.

The result is that the Government has now agreed on a range of strategies designed to reduce both criminal offending and the prison population on a number of fronts.

These strategies which were publicly announced in August, are collectively referred to as the Effective Interventions package and can be grouped into three broad themes:

• Earlier interventions to prevent crime;
• Using alternatives to prison where this is appropriate; and
• Adopting a smarter uses of prison resources

In developing the Effective Interventions strategies, Ministers and officials looked at a wide range of possible sanctions that could have an impact in further reducing crime, addressing the growing prison muster, and building genuinely safer communities.

An important factor in achieving these outcomes is improving the process and experiences for all those involved within the justice system on a day-to-day basis.

On Wednesday, the new Parenting Hearings Programme, which is being piloted in six family courts around the country got underway.

This programme delivers a new process for determining complex care of children cases. The programme allows for a greater focus on the needs and views of children, as well as reducing delays in the court process. It provides for a more active role for the presiding judge to identify the issues to be resolved in defended cases, and in deciding the best process for achieving resolution.

By avoiding delays and enabling quicker resolution of cases, the process is intended to reduce the damage that lengthy court battles can do to the family relationships at issue, and critically, produce better outcomes for children.

I congratulate the Family Court on this initiative. Like the Parenting Hearings Programme, producing better outcomes for those involved within its process is a fundamental element of restorative justice. This is why restorative justice is an important component of the new government initiatives.

The pilot was evaluated in terms of its effectiveness in:

• Increasing the resolution of the effects of crime for victims;
• Increasing victim satisfaction with the criminal justice process; and
• Reducing re-offending.

Its evaluation was completed last year, and the results were encouraging.

Most victims who participated in a restorative justice process found it was a positive experience. Three quarters of participants reported feeling benefit as a result of taking part in a conference. Twelve months after the court hearing more than half of the victims said that the offence was completely behind them, and many victims said that the restorative justice process had helped them achieve this.

Around three quarters of victims reported that the offender now understood how they felt. Two-thirds of them said that the offender had been made accountable for their actions and had shown that they were genuinely sorry for their offending. Victims had the opportunity to say what they wanted to; they felt involved in the process and were treated with respect. In the follow-up interviews (a year after their conference), more than one third of victims said that they felt more positive about the criminal justice system after participating in a restorative justice conference.

The majority of victims reported that the conference enabled them to make the effects of the offence on them clear to the offender. Most victims said that they would attend another such conference, and many said that they would recommend participating in restorative justice conferences to others.

The evaluation also showed that restorative justice processes could increase offenders' involvement in dealing with their offending. Offenders reported that the restorative justice process gave them as opportunity to say what they wanted to, and they understood and agreed with the decisions made about how to deal with their offending.

A two-year follow up of re-offending was completed in February 2006. It showed a small overall decrease in the re-conviction rate of offenders who had taken part in restorative justice, when compared to carefully matched comparison offenders.

While the sample was not large, the evaluators concluded that the decrease in re-offending was real, as the reconviction rate of the conferenced group was lower than all of 10 matched comparison groups throughout the two-year period.

The evaluation also found that fewer conferenced offenders were sentenced to imprisonment that the matched comparison groups, and that where they were sentenced to imprisonment, the sentences were shorter, and more were given the opportunity to apply to serve their sentences as home detention.

The lower imprisonment rate for offenders is another positive and encouraging outcome of restorative justice processes.

Effective Interventions and Restorative Justice

All of those who have been part of the court-referred restorative justice pilot, or of other community-managed restorative justice processes, have the right t share in the success shown by the evaluation of these programmes, and to feel that your work has contributed to the positive future place of restorative justice in New Zealand.

As I said earlier, access to proven and new restorative just processes is an important feature of the interventions put forward as part of the Government's initiatives to address the high rate of imprisonment, and to provide more effectively for the needs of victims.

Information from the courts pilot, ad a number of other community-managed programmes, was drawn on in the development of four proposals that will expand availability of restorative justice processes, at different stages of the criminal justice system.

The first three proposals will extend provision of restorative justice process in cases of less serious offending, as part of the Police Diversion process.

The second proposal is for the staged extension of the successful restorative justice pilot in cases of serious offending – where an offender has pleaded guilty, and admits responsibility, and the offence is serious, so diversion is not an option, and imprisonment is a possible outcome.

The third proposal is a cornerstone for the expansion of restorative justice, and will provide a performance framework to ensure safe and high quality practice that meets the needs of the criminal justice system, victims and offenders.

These four proposals will increase significantly the opportunity for victims to have a real say in the criminal justice system, and real input into the outcomes for those who have harmed them through criminal offending.

The government recognises the importance of maintaining the community-based aspect of restorative justice. In line with this view, the Ministry of Justice will be working closely with Restorative Justice Aotearoa in developing policies and implementing standards for restorative justice provision.

Concluding comments

And that brings me back to our kaupapa here today. Restorative justice processes provide a safe and controlled environment in which offenders face their victims, take steps to redress the harm they have caused to those victims and to the community, and to address the causes of their offending.

The Ngati Hine Health Trust will I'm sure, continue to add to the work and reputation of restorative justice providers around the country who are daily making a difference in the lives of people who are affected by offending.

So, in closing, I acknowledge the commitment to all those who are here today, and those who are unable to be here who will dedicate their time and efforts to making restorative justice processes work in a real way for this community, to repair where possible the harm caused by offending, and to help prevent its re-occurrence in the future.

I value the important role you play in ensuring that increasingly the voices of victims are heard that the rights of those victims are acknowledged; so that their healing can be advanced in and through the criminal justice system.

Thank you again for the opportunity to share this important day with you.

No rei ra, Tena katou, tena katou, tena tatou katoa.