Before you judge, take a trip to the courthouse

You should go to your local courthouse. The good thing with being not-quite old and not-quite young is that I’ve had enough time to see plenty of interesting things, can still remember them quite clearly, and haven’t become a grumpy old git yet.

Take courts. As a journalist I have been in more courthouses than the average person. For instance, the average person hasn’t been crammed into a tiny weatherboard courthouse while a man in a holding cell screams and slams something – maybe a booted foot, maybe his shoulder, maybe his head – against the other side of a wall that bumps against your elbow like a drunk dancer. Maybe dust flies off the gib on to your notepad.

The average person doesn’t see the people outside the courthouse at the start of the day, looking terrified, resigned, bored, impatient, redeyed, hungover, waiting for the sniffy registrar or security guard to open up.

The average person doesn’t sit through hours of drink-driving, burglary, disorder cases pushed along a conveyor belt permanently greased with the squawk of the registrar’s voice calling the next appearance. They don’t see the end result of violence, dismal personal disasters, bad decisions, poisonous amounts of adrenaline, intoxicants.

The average person doesn’t get drawn into this circus. And that’s the problem – the average person is, after all, Pa¯ keha¯ and mostly absent from the reckonings of justice.

I raise this because government initiatives like the criminal justice summit in Porirua, and an advisory group tasked with overhauling the system, have been criticised for not having enough Ma¯ ori involvement.

I know statistics can prove to be slippery customers, but when it comes to incarceration, the numbers can’t wriggle out of this one. As Stuff has reported, Ma¯ ori make up about 15 per cent of the population but account for half of male prisoners. Ma¯ ori make up 63 per cent of the female prison population. Ma¯ ori are more likely to be imprisoned for the same crimes, and get longer sentences for the same crimes, than Pa¯ keha¯ .

As Stuff points out, one in every 142 Ma¯ ori New Zealanders is in prison. Now, given that most New Zealanders probably don’t know 142 Ma¯ ori, that’s not much of a problem for some. To these people, the numbers merely prove that Ma¯ ori are themselves deficient. Ma¯ ori need to take some responsibility, and if not, then some will shrug and say, ‘‘Who cares?’’ – that’s what jails are for. In fact, I dare say some are glad to see Ma¯ ori locked away.

But I know quite a few Ma¯ ori, many of them are friends. Actually many are family, and I’m one of them. So I take a bit of a personal interest in this problem, which does not appear to be getting better. I’m convinced, however, that the vast majority of people take a compassionate and rational approach to justice.

Perhaps some of these people understand how poverty affects people and their families, trapping them in a snake-eating-its-tail loop. Perhaps they understand that the destruction and theft of taonga – physical, cultural, spiritual – end in packed courthouses and prisons and hospitals.

At the very least, perhaps they see that it’s surely cheaper to start dealing with causes than effects. A spike in prisoner numbers in recent years is not fair, compassionate, or sustainable. Especially when the system itself has beaten the good out of the people travelling through it.

I don’t know if there was enough Ma¯ ori expertise, and coal-face (as opposed to purely academic) expertise on the working party, and at the summit. There will always be debate about whether the best strategies come from people down in the reeds, or up in the towers, but I do think there needs to be as much genuine Ma¯ ori collaboration as possible. Smarter people than me say solutions for Ma¯ ori should come from Ma¯ ori.

Regardless, it’s a good start to even set up the group. At least it signals an intention to come up with solutions. And summits might be imperfect, and a talkfest, but they’re a start too. The twin desires for retribution and punishment are understandable reactions to wicked crimes. But most people deserve a second chance. We should help them turn their lives around, not feed them back into the machine.

With incarceration numbers now at an all-time high, the previous government appeared to take the opposite approach. There is no solution in trying to look serious and sober when you just keep turning the handle on the meat grinder.

Change is actually starting. That could also mean that average people might even want to understand how things work. For starters, I think people should consider visiting their local courthouse. It is their right, and perhaps their duty, to see the system at work.

Justice is transparent, but that doesn’t mean it should be invisible to many.

There is no solution in trying to look serious and sober when you just keep turning the handle on the meat grinder.