Debbie Ngarewa-Packer: When subject is crime, cue old blame and shame game

To reduce crime, a better justice system requires approaches to prevention, intervention and rehabilitation, not just imprisonment. Photo / Paul Taylor

OPINION:

For as long as I can remember, politicians have pointed fingers at each other about not being tough enough on gangs and crime. Like clockwork, every election period it pops up just weeks before billboards do. In politics, it is far easier to scare people than it is to inspire them, and politicians often prefer to take the easy route. So, each goes out to create moral panic. The social theory of moral panic is to manipulate emotions to create a widespread feeling of fear and demonise a group of people that threatens the values or interests of a mass group.

It’s a ploy that has been utilised regularly by National in the past three years; in their co-governance and Three Waters rhetoric for example, and it’s not surprising to see it used in their tough-on-crime policy. It’s ironic that the party who were recently saying they stand for “one law for all” are now calling for separate laws for gang members. Separate laws that already exist, by the way. Yet at no stage will they ever take ownership of their contribution to the problem.

In 1972 Norman Kirk promised to take the bikes off the bikies, a sentiment echoed by Labour in 1999, National in 2005, Labour again in 2017, and once again National today. When Judith Collins was the Minister for Corrections in 2014-2016 the reimprisonment rate for Māori increased to seven times higher than non-Māori. Former gang members were banned from volunteering in prisons despite not being affiliated with a gang for nearly 30 years. Collins’ justification was that Māori were being recruited into gangs inside, and she took no responsibility for her role in locking more Māori up and dismantling tikanga Māori-based rehabilitation programmes in prisons.

It is rich to see National blame Labour for being soft on crime when gang numbers started rising when they got into Government in 2011. Not once has National acknowledged its past social failures. As Ngapari Nui said to me, gangs exist because of the failed education system, low income, poor housing, cultural profiling, urbanisation, and a failing health system.

It’s times like this I really miss the staunch and pragmatic justice advocate, late National MP Chester Borrows, who told us “to get the politics out of it and for all parties to work together towards an evidence-based policy which will last, for which governments will be equally forced to take the recognition and responsibility”.

Former Whanganui MP Chester Borrows. Photo / Supplied

He pleaded with us to stop playing the tired old politics of blaming and shaming the most vulnerable whānau of our community and find a way to work together for enduring solutions that work, not that rise every three years in tune with the election cycle.

Gangs in Aotearoa are the result of colonialism and inequality. The Waitangi Tribunal estimates that 80 per cent to 90 per cent of Mongrel Mob and Black Power gang members were taken into state care. Because the Government has never addressed their trauma, we have communities of people with trauma. Matched with increasing poverty, homelessness, and a growing Māori prison population, these are complex social issues that need unique, innovative solutions - not one-stop-shop approaches.

If we are serious about curbing gang violence in this country, then we need to get serious about looking at the causes, not the symptoms. As long as we continue to talk about gangs without ever talking to them, we are only going to further entrench trauma in their whānau and their community.

Mongrel Mob life member Harry Tam has commented that we must come to terms with the fact we cannot arrest our way out of “gangs”. This approach has failed for decades, making the problem worse. To reduce crime, a better justice system requires evidence-based, cost-effective approaches to prevention, intervention and rehabilitation, not just imprisonment.

Harry Tam. Photo / Rebecca Parsons-Kin

Chester Borrows knew colonisation was a major factor in the formation of gangs. You cannot take away a group’s economy and language, corral them into low decile, vulnerable communities where they have the smallest voice in democracy, and expect them to thrive. After decades of politicians declaring war on gangs, any discussion around why gangs exist in the first place sounds too much like a justification for their existence to the public.

National have not cited a single policy to reduce crime, but to increase prison numbers. The sport of getting tough on crime is only played in Opposition. Have they ever wondered why there are no gangs in Parnell or Herne Bay?

Politicians do not want evidence-based solutions. They want voter-pleasing soundbites and anecdotes which fuel the fire. They choose fear over hope because it’s easier.

In the words of Martin Luther King Jr: “There comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but he must take it because conscience tells him it is right.”

Debbie Ngarewa-Packer, MP is co-leader of the Māori Party.

An earlier version of this story referred to the Abuse in Care Royal Commission of Inquiry. That reference has been corrected. Also, this paragraph: “A Waitangi Tribunal report found 90 per cent of those abused in state care joined gangs,” has been corrected to read: “The Waitangi Tribunal estimates that 80 per cent to 90 per cent of Mongrel Mob and Black Power gang members were taken into state care.”