Path from state care to prison revealed

AUCKLAND: Onethird of children placed in state care have ended up serving a prison sentence, according to research tabled before the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care in Auckland yesterday.

Throughout its two years of hearings, the commission has heard often about a pipeline from state care to the justice system.

Witnesses have detailed boys’ homes that were criminal training grounds, teens who were recruited into gangs from care homes, and foster children forced to steal to survive. It has heard about how they all ended up in the justice system.

It is the experience of researcher Dr Rawiri WaretiniKarena, a researcher who, in the 1980s, served 10 years in prison for murder.

‘‘You go out into the yard for the first time and you actually know about 80% of the people there,’’ he said.

‘‘The reason why I knew them is because I spent 11 years in family homes, foster homes, social welfare homes and boys’ homes.’’

Yesterday, research commissioned by the inquiry was tabled, which gave numbers to those anecdotes.

The researchers, Synergia, sifted through the documents of more than 30,000 children who were in state care between 1950 and 1999 to see just how many ended up in prison.

It found that one in three children placed in residential care by the state ended up in prison later in life. That number rose to 42% for Maori.

Counsel assisting the royal commission Anne Toohey asked the chief executive of Oranga Tamariki, Chappie Te Kani, whether he agreed that the findings reflected a trajectory from the state residential care system into prison.

‘‘Yes, I do,’’ he replied.

But the figures could also be a significant undercount. The state has already conceded that its recordkeeping was so poor it did not know how many people went through the state care system, let alone were abused.

Dr WaretiniKarena said those numbers were probably higher still for Maori, and the royal commission process was fast showing the stolen generations of Aotearoa.

The report said half of those who were in state care were Maori, despite being only 13% of the population.

‘‘What [state care] did was it changed the status of tamariki Maori from taonga to chattels.

‘‘They beat and abused children for speaking their native language, and then in the next ripple it’s led to generations of abuse and violence for tamariki mokopuna.

‘‘Originally it wasn’t about the health and safety of tamariki. It was about assimilation.’’

Responding to the report yesterday, Oranga Tamariki chief social worker Peter Whitcombe said it did not have to be an inevitability.

‘‘How we drive, firstly, to enable tamariki to be with their families safely and have the supports there. How we drive towards not enabling them to come into a residential care facility.

‘‘We know that is not the best place for them. We sometimes refer to it as a fully funded failure model.’’

Yesterday was the last day of Oranga Tamariki’s crossexamination.

The Department of Corrections and the Office of the Children’s Commissioner will appear at commission hearings today.

Tomorrow, the final day of the state agency hearings, the Ombudsman, Te Puni Kokiri, the Ministry for Pacific Peoples and the Public Service Commission will appear. — RNZ