Cultural victim blaming not the answer

Tu Tangata, Issue 30, 1 July 1986, Page 61

Cultural victim blaming not the answer

CULTURAL victim blaming has for many years, being used to explain the high rate ofmaori offending, but it is only a band-aid response, says Moana Jackson.

He believes deeper and more sensitive questioning will reveal why and not just what is happening. He’s currently undertaking a survey for the Justice minister, Geoffrey Palmer, who’s very concerned that institutional responses have done little to help the situation. Even the way Moana came to do the survey points to insensitivity and bureaucracy. A pakeha woman was first hired to ask questions of Maori people. She realised the inadequacy of the method and Moana stepped in. He says he first spends time checking with whanaunga and elders on how to go about asking questions and came up with two specific questions: Why do you

think maori crime figures are so high and how do you think the justice system operates in relation to our kids? Moana believes the response to these two questions will open the doors wide on understanding. He points to the heat and emotional response whenever maori offending is mentioned, both in the media and amongst professional social workers. Countless research has been done, all of it in the Justice Department’s files carried out by pakeha says Moana, who’s had occasion to search the files. The research has drawn superficial conclusions such as the urban drift has caused the severing of tribal roots and when the Maori gets accustomed to urban living then the crime rate will lessen. This hasn’t happened says Moana, and doesn’t focus on why kinship ties are dislocated. A former school teacher who’s taken up the study of law, Moana Jackson says

it’s essential to develop a maori perspective rather than be continually faced with responding to the dominant culture viewpoint. He says from his contact with Maori people through his voluntary work in the Neighbourhood Law Centre in Newtown, he sees how the law and its enforcers are viewed. That in itself should have been researched a long time ago and should have been requested by the police. Instead Moana says no research has been carried out on how police go about their job. He says a lot of the research on maori offending was based on statistics and from it a lot of assertions were made. These in turn became stereotypes and described the situation rather than explaining why. Moana will have got underway with the survey in late May and will first be working in his tribal area of Ngati Kahungunu and then branching out across the country. He’s expecting to complete his task by the end of the year.