title: The Rangatahi court

authors: Dickson, Matiu

abstract: It has become popular to use the marae setting as an alternative to the mainstream courts in dealing with young Māori offenders. The rationale is that taking young Māori offenders back to the marae to be dealt with in the youth justice system, encourages them to face up to their responsibilities and aids their rehabilitation back into the community. The expectation is that whānau will be present to support the young person and to help resolve his or her offending and bad behaviour. I supported this innovation when it was introduced but now I have second thoughts having seen that a marae that piloted this scheme was vandalised with graffiti painted on the marae buildings. In my view, when this happened the scheme to use marae should have ceased and an opportunity taken to rethink their use in this way. For a Māori the vandalism of their marae is like a physical assault on the person of their tupuna. This paper looks at the traditional role of marae in the Māori community and questions the use of marae as judicial settings. It suggests what needs to be done first to make this setting tika or appropriate.

text: The Rangatahi court It has become popular to use the marae setting as an alternative to the mainstream courts in dealing with young Māori offenders. The rationale is that taking young Māori offenders back to the marae to be dealt with in the youth justice system, encourages them to face up to their responsibilities and aids their rehabilitation back into the community. The expectation is that whānau will be present to support the young person and to help resolve his or her offending and bad behaviour. I supported this innovation when it was introduced but now I have second thoughts having seen that a marae that piloted this scheme was vandalised with graffiti painted on the marae buildings. In my view, when this happened the scheme to use marae should have ceased and an opportunity taken to rethink their use in this way. For a Māori the vandalism of their marae is like a physical assault on the person of their tupuna. This paper looks at the traditional role of marae in the Māori community and questions the use of marae as judicial settings. It suggests what needs to be done first to make this setting tika or appropriate.

year: 2011

title: Evaluation of treatment responsivity in a psychopathic prison treatment sample

authors: Champion, Michelle Elizabeth

subjects: psychopathy

abstract: Although punishment still dominates the criminal justice system, the progression of research on offending and imprisonment has led to a general consensus that rehabilitation programmes are the appropriate method to effectively reduce both recidivism and prison populations. Hence, many effective offender treatment programmes have been developed. This thesis evaluated phase one of a 10 month pilot treatment programme which used the theories and principles of effective programming to develop an effective programme for male high risk violent offenders assessed with elevated psychopathic personality (High Risk Personality Programme; HRPP), a population of offenders that is often regarded as treatment resistant. Specifically, phase one of the HRPP was designed to address the participants’ responsivity barriers (namely, antisocial interpersonal style) in order to increase self-efficacy, therapeutic alliance, treatability, and readiness, and to reduce perceived coercion in order to aid engagement and success in treatment. A sample of 11 male HRPP inmates had data collected before and after their 17-week first phase of the 10 month three-phase programme. Treatment contact comprised four sessions per week, including three group sessions of 2.5 hours, and 1 individual session of one hour, as well as a two-hour group cultural session that focused on Maori cultural identity (10 of the 11 men were Maori). The battery of tests employed included the Self-Efficacy Questionnaire; the responsivity and readiness scales of the Treatment Readiness Responsivity and Gain Scale; the Corrections Victoria Treatment Readiness Questionnaire, the Paulhus Deception Scale, and the therapist and client versions of the Working Alliance Inventory Short Form, the Perceived Coercion Scale, and an evaluation questionnaire. Demographic data was also collected. The results indicated that the majority of the participants came to the intervention ready or motivated to change. Perceived coercion remained low throughout the programme, representing the participant’s voluntary status. On average participants’ levels of self-efficacy and treatability (except callousness) improved significantly over the course of the treatment. Differing levels of improvement were found for the client and therapist perspective of the therapeutic alliance, indicating they interpreted the alliance differently. Participants with high PCL-R factor one scores showed a decrease in coercion, compared to an increase by their counterparts with low PCL-R factor one scores. Participants with high PCL-R factor one scores also had higher overall scores on the CVTRQ readiness measure, and the participant’s perspective of the therapeutic alliance. Individually, six of the treatment participants made significant improvements on at least five of the seven responsivity measures. These findings and their implications for treatment of psychopathic offenders are discussed, along with the relevance of the study’s responsivity measures, the strengths and limitations of the research project, and future research in this area.

text: Evaluation of treatment responsivity in a psychopathic prison treatment sample Although punishment still dominates the criminal justice system, the progression of research on offending and imprisonment has led to a general consensus that rehabilitation programmes are the appropriate method to effectively reduce both recidivism and prison populations. Hence, many effective offender treatment programmes have been developed. This thesis evaluated phase one of a 10 month pilot treatment programme which used the theories and principles of effective programming to develop an effective programme for male high risk violent offenders assessed with elevated psychopathic personality (High Risk Personality Programme; HRPP), a population of offenders that is often regarded as treatment resistant. Specifically, phase one of the HRPP was designed to address the participants’ responsivity barriers (namely, antisocial interpersonal style) in order to increase self-efficacy, therapeutic alliance, treatability, and readiness, and to reduce perceived coercion in order to aid engagement and success in treatment. A sample of 11 male HRPP inmates had data collected before and after their 17-week first phase of the 10 month three-phase programme. Treatment contact comprised four sessions per week, including three group sessions of 2.5 hours, and 1 individual session of one hour, as well as a two-hour group cultural session that focused on Maori cultural identity (10 of the 11 men were Maori). The battery of tests employed included the Self-Efficacy Questionnaire; the responsivity and readiness scales of the Treatment Readiness Responsivity and Gain Scale; the Corrections Victoria Treatment Readiness Questionnaire, the Paulhus Deception Scale, and the therapist and client versions of the Working Alliance Inventory Short Form, the Perceived Coercion Scale, and an evaluation questionnaire. Demographic data was also collected. The results indicated that the majority of the participants came to the intervention ready or motivated to change. Perceived coercion remained low throughout the programme, representing the participant’s voluntary status. On average participants’ levels of self-efficacy and treatability (except callousness) improved significantly over the course of the treatment. Differing levels of improvement were found for the client and therapist perspective of the therapeutic alliance, indicating they interpreted the alliance differently. Participants with high PCL-R factor one scores showed a decrease in coercion, compared to an increase by their counterparts with low PCL-R factor one scores. Participants with high PCL-R factor one scores also had higher overall scores on the CVTRQ readiness measure, and the participant’s perspective of the therapeutic alliance. Individually, six of the treatment participants made significant improvements on at least five of the seven responsivity measures. These findings and their implications for treatment of psychopathic offenders are discussed, along with the relevance of the study’s responsivity measures, the strengths and limitations of the research project, and future research in this area.

year: 2010

title: Where did the rats of big South Cape Island come from?

authors: Robins, Judith H.

abstract: The ship rat invasion of Big South Cape Island/Taukihepa in the 1960s was an ecological catastrophe that marked a turning point for the management of rodents on offshore islands of New Zealand. Despite the importance of this event in the conservation history of New Zealand, and subsequent major advances in rodent eradication and biosecurity, the source and pathway of the rat invasion of Big South Cape Island has never been identified. Using modern molecular methods on contemporary and historical tissue samples, we identify the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) haplotype of ship rats (Rattus rattus) on Big South Cape Island and compare it to that of ship rats in the neighbouring regions of Stewart Island/Rakiura and southern New Zealand, all hypothesised as possible source sites for the invasion. We identify two haplotype clusters, each comprising three closely related haplotypes; one cluster unique to Stewart Island, and the other found in southern New Zealand and elsewhere. By a process of elimination we rule that the ship rat invasion of Big South Cape Island was neither by swimming nor boat transport from Stewart Island, and is unlikely to have come from the south coast ports of New Zealand. However, because the ship rat haplotype found on Big South Cape Island is cosmopolitan to New Zealand’s South Island and elsewhere, we can only confirm that the invasion likely originated from some distance, but are not able to identify the invasion source more precisely. An unexpected consequence of our study is the discovery of five new mtDNA haplotypes for R. rattus that have not been previously reported.

text: Where did the rats of big South Cape Island come from? The ship rat invasion of Big South Cape Island/Taukihepa in the 1960s was an ecological catastrophe that marked a turning point for the management of rodents on offshore islands of New Zealand. Despite the importance of this event in the conservation history of New Zealand, and subsequent major advances in rodent eradication and biosecurity, the source and pathway of the rat invasion of Big South Cape Island has never been identified. Using modern molecular methods on contemporary and historical tissue samples, we identify the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) haplotype of ship rats (Rattus rattus) on Big South Cape Island and compare it to that of ship rats in the neighbouring regions of Stewart Island/Rakiura and southern New Zealand, all hypothesised as possible source sites for the invasion. We identify two haplotype clusters, each comprising three closely related haplotypes; one cluster unique to Stewart Island, and the other found in southern New Zealand and elsewhere. By a process of elimination we rule that the ship rat invasion of Big South Cape Island was neither by swimming nor boat transport from Stewart Island, and is unlikely to have come from the south coast ports of New Zealand. However, because the ship rat haplotype found on Big South Cape Island is cosmopolitan to New Zealand’s South Island and elsewhere, we can only confirm that the invasion likely originated from some distance, but are not able to identify the invasion source more precisely. An unexpected consequence of our study is the discovery of five new mtDNA haplotypes for R. rattus that have not been previously reported.

year: 2016