You see Mum and Dad were both prison chaplains. Crime was never far from the surface as they and other members of the prison reform movement met to talk rehabilitation. And we would be at a church service in the prisons at least once a month if not more often.
I saw men and women at the lowest point of their lives. I saw first-hand the scarring on their bodies and the bandages around their wrists as they’d yet again tried to kill themselves. And I heard stories of horror about those prisoners’ childhoods that even Stephen King would struggle to write.
One that still chills me to this day is too graphic to describe in any detail. Suffice to say this Māori woman had, at the age of 7 with her five-year-old brother, watched their father murder their mother in the most brutal way imaginable. She told with chilling calm how she had directed her little brother to “put Mum’s blood into a bucket so when the ambulance comes they can pour it into her and make her better again”. This girl went on to kill herself alone in her prison cell.
I write these words in light of the recent Criminal Justice Symposium, held in Porirua – another yawn-fest focused on the fact we have too many Māori prisoners. Uh huh.
Here’s the thing: having grown up with Māori criminals, I don’t much care for their life choices. You kill, you go to prison. You deal hard drugs, you go to prison. You bash your wife and kids, you go to prison. These people know right from wrong. They know that their choices may end them up in prison. And if you don’t believe me, ask them.
I care about that brutalised seven-year-old and the life path her murderous father set for her. In the lead up to that almost inevitable killing of her mother, her father was a wife-beating, hard-drinking, serial-womanising thug. Her life was punctuated by the sexual abuse she suffered at the hands of those her father brought around for parties – Once Were Warriors was effectively her life story. She was a victim of crime. And yes, she went on to victimise, by committing murder.
Unfortunately we’ve become criminal-focused and not victim-focused. We speak in horror that 50% of male prisoners are Māori. And we’re now beginning to speak of the fact that 65% of the female prison population is Māori. Is it a crisis? Only if we consider that for every prisoner, we have multiple victims of their crimes. The number of Māori prisoners does signal a crisis – a crisis for their victims and for our Māori communities.
We are disproportionate victims of crime – 30% more likely to experience theft and damages offences, almost twice as likely to experience property crime, and nearly three times more likely to experience repeat violent interpersonal offences. It gets worse.
Māori women make up just 7% of our country’s population, but 20% of all assault victims. And if that doesn’t cause you to sit up, perhaps this next number will. Of the 58 children killed in their family homes between 1990 and 2014, 35 (60%) were Māori.
For those of you who want to blame colonisation as the cause, tell that to the victims’ whānau – they’ll spit in your face and tell you it was a drug-addled alcohol-addicted useless Māori father that murdered their child. These men should be grateful for prison, in comparison with the justice meted out in our old Māori ways.
Prisons are not a failure. Māori men and women who commit crime are a failure. And that failure starts with us – their whānau.
We’ve watched the parties that start on a Thursday night and finish Sunday. We’ve been to homes and watched as they sit in a cannabis-induced haze, where the benefit is prioritised on alcohol and partying at the expense of food, clothing, and schooling. We’ve turned a blind eye to the black eyes.
You see, dealing with whānau like this is hard and horrendously frustrating. We know the Treaty has got nothing to do with it – we come from the same whakapapa or have the same grandparents and tīpuna and don’t behave like this. And that’s because of personal choices.
My grandfather, Ned Kamo, came to Christchurch from Wharekauri with my grandmother (Kui Whaitiri). Papa’s education was limited (he left school at 12). He was a farm worker on the island and those skills weren’t in much demand in 1930s Depression-era Christchurch. He had no money and struggled to make ends meet. But make ends meet he did. And throughout my father’s childhood, my grandfather was laser-like in his focus on the importance of getting an education.
So you can imagine the messages that we mokopuna heard growing up. He never spoke of broken Treaty promises or the fact he’d received little lands from the alienation of title that occurred in his father Tareikamo Paramena’s time. He never complained of his lack of education or that colonisation was making life hard for him.
What he did do was celebrate every success we told him about. And he took great pride in the fact we were at school and trying our best. We need to change the tune.
I know first-hand the brutal lives of many Māori criminals and I know that too many of them have been victims of crime, neglect, and violence in their childhood. These root causes have been generations in the making, and no one government can be blamed.
But to focus on prisons as being the problem for Māori borders on absurd. To suggest less prison equals less crime is preposterous. The problem is the victimisation of Māori by our own.
Prisons provide welcome relief for those brutalised by their loved ones on a daily basis – they serve these victims of crime. They may also be a place where we can begin the long road to addressing the issues that led to time behind bars – but I doubt that – if they did we wouldn’t need them.
The cure starts in our whānau and the choices we make. Rehabilitation has to start with “habilitated” individuals. The seven-year-old girl I referred to could never have been rehabilitated, because she was never properly socialised in the first place.
A lack of education, poor life, financial and social skills, hand-in-hand with poor parenting, are at the root of crime. The solutions involve support to the parents of at-risk kids. We must ruthlessly address these issues early, and, as whānau, demand the resources to keep these kids at school, and even, if necessary, to keep their parents away from them.
Crime will not end with more prisons. And nor will fewer prisons end crime. Crime will end within our whānau and the choices we make.
Ward Kamo sits on the board of Pillars – an agency focused on supporting children of prisoners, is a successful businessman and has worked in television. This article was published on October 3, 2018 HERE
I write these words in light of the recent Criminal Justice Symposium, held in Porirua – another yawn-fest focused on the fact we have too many Māori prisoners. Uh huh.
Here’s the thing: having grown up with Māori criminals, I don’t much care for their life choices. You kill, you go to prison. You deal hard drugs, you go to prison. You bash your wife and kids, you go to prison. These people know right from wrong. They know that their choices may end them up in prison. And if you don’t believe me, ask them.
I care about that brutalised seven-year-old and the life path her murderous father set for her. In the lead up to that almost inevitable killing of her mother, her father was a wife-beating, hard-drinking, serial-womanising thug. Her life was punctuated by the sexual abuse she suffered at the hands of those her father brought around for parties – Once Were Warriors was effectively her life story. She was a victim of crime. And yes, she went on to victimise, by committing murder.
Unfortunately we’ve become criminal-focused and not victim-focused. We speak in horror that 50% of male prisoners are Māori. And we’re now beginning to speak of the fact that 65% of the female prison population is Māori. Is it a crisis? Only if we consider that for every prisoner, we have multiple victims of their crimes. The number of Māori prisoners does signal a crisis – a crisis for their victims and for our Māori communities.
We are disproportionate victims of crime – 30% more likely to experience theft and damages offences, almost twice as likely to experience property crime, and nearly three times more likely to experience repeat violent interpersonal offences. It gets worse.
Māori women make up just 7% of our country’s population, but 20% of all assault victims. And if that doesn’t cause you to sit up, perhaps this next number will. Of the 58 children killed in their family homes between 1990 and 2014, 35 (60%) were Māori.
For those of you who want to blame colonisation as the cause, tell that to the victims’ whānau – they’ll spit in your face and tell you it was a drug-addled alcohol-addicted useless Māori father that murdered their child. These men should be grateful for prison, in comparison with the justice meted out in our old Māori ways.
Prisons are not a failure. Māori men and women who commit crime are a failure. And that failure starts with us – their whānau.
We’ve watched the parties that start on a Thursday night and finish Sunday. We’ve been to homes and watched as they sit in a cannabis-induced haze, where the benefit is prioritised on alcohol and partying at the expense of food, clothing, and schooling. We’ve turned a blind eye to the black eyes.
You see, dealing with whānau like this is hard and horrendously frustrating. We know the Treaty has got nothing to do with it – we come from the same whakapapa or have the same grandparents and tīpuna and don’t behave like this. And that’s because of personal choices.
My grandfather, Ned Kamo, came to Christchurch from Wharekauri with my grandmother (Kui Whaitiri). Papa’s education was limited (he left school at 12). He was a farm worker on the island and those skills weren’t in much demand in 1930s Depression-era Christchurch. He had no money and struggled to make ends meet. But make ends meet he did. And throughout my father’s childhood, my grandfather was laser-like in his focus on the importance of getting an education.
So you can imagine the messages that we mokopuna heard growing up. He never spoke of broken Treaty promises or the fact he’d received little lands from the alienation of title that occurred in his father Tareikamo Paramena’s time. He never complained of his lack of education or that colonisation was making life hard for him.
What he did do was celebrate every success we told him about. And he took great pride in the fact we were at school and trying our best. We need to change the tune.
I know first-hand the brutal lives of many Māori criminals and I know that too many of them have been victims of crime, neglect, and violence in their childhood. These root causes have been generations in the making, and no one government can be blamed.
But to focus on prisons as being the problem for Māori borders on absurd. To suggest less prison equals less crime is preposterous. The problem is the victimisation of Māori by our own.
Prisons provide welcome relief for those brutalised by their loved ones on a daily basis – they serve these victims of crime. They may also be a place where we can begin the long road to addressing the issues that led to time behind bars – but I doubt that – if they did we wouldn’t need them.
The cure starts in our whānau and the choices we make. Rehabilitation has to start with “habilitated” individuals. The seven-year-old girl I referred to could never have been rehabilitated, because she was never properly socialised in the first place.
A lack of education, poor life, financial and social skills, hand-in-hand with poor parenting, are at the root of crime. The solutions involve support to the parents of at-risk kids. We must ruthlessly address these issues early, and, as whānau, demand the resources to keep these kids at school, and even, if necessary, to keep their parents away from them.
Crime will not end with more prisons. And nor will fewer prisons end crime. Crime will end within our whānau and the choices we make.
Ward Kamo sits on the board of Pillars – an agency focused on supporting children of prisoners, is a successful businessman and has worked in television. This article was published on October 3, 2018 HERE
12 comments:
That is enlightening to say the least .
I could imagine the remedy not being that easy
There are sadly ,in my view people out there who are interested in them not achieving the goal you are trying to achieve .I think it is in all of the communities interest to somehow stop this terrible thing from perpetuating
I commend the people who work towards this goal.Can not some of the funds paid out for various claims be used to help?
Wow, just wow. The current govt no doubt will have an alternative story.
Yes that is the reality but not the narrative Maori admit to. Bad things are hushed up and not spoken about.
Thankyou, I get despondent that me, as a non maori, get blamed for all the troubles, I have allways thought that people need to take personal responsibility for their actions and situations.
Please stop blaming me because you killed your kids!
I, like many in NZ now, get fed up that everything is now simplified down to race and colour. Since when did that EVER really matter? What matters is your attitude to others, respect for them and for yourself. No one can be blamed for your live choices and the sooner we stop this blame and cancel culture, the sooner we can tackle the lack of self respect and goals that people seem to have now.
We all know some are bought up in disfunctional environments and this of course affects their outcomes. But there are many who overcome their poor start in life and achieve alot. But we seem to focus on the negative, time we celebrated in the successes and made them front page news, instead of the failures. But as humans we are hard wired to be attracted to the negative, so hence we face an uphill battle.
Thank You, Ward !!
That is a very powerful narrative, straight from your life experience.
You very clearly point to the cause and hopefully, some day, the way out of this cycle of violence and blaming others.
What you say is true, Kamo. Being a small part Maori, growing up in Kaingaroa forest village, Murupara and Rotorua I saw some of those things of which you speak.
From the 50s onwards to the 70s it was managable but the steady loss of physical work from there on of which most Maori took pride in and prided themselves on, sapped them of dignity and direction.
Loss of work in forestry, roading, shearing, ect was the beginning of the path of loss of much Maori mana, the horrible Maori tragedy we are witness to today.
I wish to see, and I know I'll get rubbished, some sort of Kainga evolve, a new villagey type thing wherein the past is acknowledged and a genuine put in community similar to a modern tribal concept where all contribute and all receive.
And at the Kaingas heart, good solid leadership and education.
In essence back to the beginning.
Because the future looks hell.
As a person who spent his formative years in a state housing area, (Glen Innes, Auckland) the whole story rings true. I was a youngster watching tv (Rawhide) at a neighbours house because it was one of the few houses in the neighbourhood who had one. The house had few other furnishings. A crowd of us neighbourhood kids lying on the bare wood floor, knew that it was game over if we heard stumbling at the door and the whiff of alcohol as the man of the house staggered in. We would scarper like rats leaving a sinking ship when that happened because we all knew what was likely to ensue.
I commend this man's story because it has the ring of truth, and because he himself not only has a Maori heritage, which because of prejudice makes it impossible for non-Maori to tell this story without being labelled racist or for fear of being labelled as such. One of the absolute key elements missing here to enable moving forward is the complete lack of emphasis by government on personal responsibility. That sort of language virtually never enters their minds. In fact the opposite is true. The present government seems hell bent on perpetuating a sense of victimhood amongst the perpetrators, but that creates a slavish self-indulgent mindset that emphasizes it must be the responsibility of everyone else.
What it isn't, is a problem of race.
The issue is a problem of values, beliefs and attitudes, unlike race, these things can be changed. But they take courage and commitment when the whole environment that these people are immersed in, goes against this reality, especially when even government initiatives make out these issues are the responsibility of everyone else.
This is one of the best posts I’ve read on here…. I grew up in a non Māori family was beaten and sexually abused by my father with the knowledge of my mother who did nothing to stop it… in fact used it as a tool to blackmail my father…. I used this experience to teach me how not to be a parent…. It was my choice to break the cycle……I now have 3 grown children all of whom are very successful in their own business and careers they chose. They’re also wonderful parents to my grandchildren. . One thing I taught them was…. you’re responsible for your actions
IU worked in the prison as a nurse and saw firsthand how people became victims in families who were the cause of their situation. Heard many stories like yourself. Well done .Hope your blog makes a difference
Thank you Ward. Only a Maori could say that without being attacked. So double thank you for the honesty
You have clearly shown where the focus should be. You have also shown clearly how current policies can only fail. And it is the ongoing victims who will pay the price and that is heart breaking to me. With your place in the National party I hope and pray you can guide them into a policy frame work that can begin to address the real causes and reject the pseudo solutions that are so destructive. Danny Simms
I am 60 years old my big take on this was the loss of trade and labouring jobs.
Throughout NZ deregulation and freemarket politics removed many old government employers who may not have been profitable but by crist they held the fabric of society together.
The cost to NZ of losing social employment is far higher.
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