September 11, 2023
Prison alternative west tested
Māori Party president John Tamihere says prisons are universities where people learn to be better criminals.
The party wants prisons abolished by 2040 as part of a crime and justice policy that calls for 20 percent of the resources of Police, Corrections and the courts to be handed over to a Māori justice authority which would oversee a parallel Māori justice system based on tikanga and self-governance.
Mr Tamihere says the Pacific way is for people who have committed a crime to be given the opportunity to make good what they have done to the community.
That approach underpinned the innovative approach to justice spearheaded in West Auckland in the 1980s by the late Mick Brown, the first Maori district court judge and principal youth court judge.
“Judge Brown would accept that those kids would mow the lawn of the house they burgled until the person in the house said ‘enough’s enough,’ and that might take a month and it might take three months but at least there was, one, an acknowledgement of the hurt you had inflicted on another person. Two, you were conducting a service in terms acknowledging that you have to give back as part of the healing process,” Mr Tamiheresays.