Sharples Pita: Young Offenders (Serious Crimes) Bill — First Reading 
Sharples Pita: Young Offenders (Serious Crimes) Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:630;Page:2327] 
Dr PITA SHARPLES (Co-Leader—Maori Party) 
: 
 I am sorry to hear that the two major parties are supporting this bill. [ 
Interruption 
] 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ann Hartley) 
: Could we please not have any interjections across the benches. The speakers just cannot be heard. 
Dr PITA SHARPLES 
: After an hour of family conferencing I stood before a hardened offender who had a rap sheet as long as one’s arm. He was angry violent and unrepentant. I asked him whether he cared about what he had done. He shouted: “Go to hell!”. Then in a flash of inspiration I said: “What about your mother?”. At this point his mother rushed forward and began hitting her son with an umbrella with tears rolling down her face. She said: “You shame me! All my life and your life you shame me! I pray for you and you let me down.” That adult man stood bolt upright and began to cry: “I’m sorry Mum.” Those are the words that began his rehabilitation and healing. He went on to lead a productive life within society after three terms in prison and convictions for 25 offences. Restorative justice can work. 
The Maori tribunal restorative justice programme began some 30 years ago by chance. A school principal rang up and said: “Another six of your kids are in trouble. They stole from a dairy and pinched a Pakeha kid’s coat. Are you going to do something about this or should I ring the police?”. I said: “No we will handle it.” Without knowing what we were doing we called a hui for all six kids their parents and the victims—the family of the boy whose coat was stolen and the dairy owner. 
We all gathered we had a prayer to open and then we had the customary Maori greetings to each parent and family. We then sat the six kids up in front and each of us had a turn at talking to them saying: “Jimmy what are you doing? Last year you were the haka leader now you are a thief.” and so on. There were hard words and kind words. At the end we gave the parents a cup of tea and we decided that the kids should work at the pensioners’ village for four Saturday mornings supervised by us. 
It worked that first time the second time and the third time. The schools started sending cases to us then the police sent cases. Then Judge Mick Brown heard of it and he started referring cases of serious offending from the courts. 
The family conferences worked because the offenders were made to be responsible to the members of their own community. They admitted guilt and had remorse. It worked because their parents and loved ones were there and officials from departments were either absent or their numbers were kept at a minimum. Judge Brown used those experiences when he designed and wrote the programme for family group conferences for our courts. Now Australia has adopted the programme. 
I cannot support a bill that sends 12-year-olds to prison. I have spent much time in my life working with those who are behind bars—in youth institutions men’s prisons women’s prisons maximum security prisons medium security prisons old prisons and new prisons and with D Block inmates. I have been part of several initiatives that have set up programmes for rehabilitation and learning and many of those are still running today. 
Prisons do not work; they do not rehabilitate. There are alternatives which I intend to talk about at some length at a later opportunity. But I will just say tonight that the culture of our prisons directly conflicts with programmes of healing and rehabilitation. There exists in men’s prisons a set of relationships that dominates every inmate’s activities especially at times of conflict or incident. Nobody is outside that matrix. In women’s prisons the structure is even more rigid with mother or “Kingpin” and her attendants ruling the roost and governing behaviour amongst all inmates. 
The Maori Party has no interest in the industry of creating schools for baby crims of teaching our teenagers how to incite terror in their communities or of adding further to the painful programme of punishment this Government seeks to hand out. We believe in the potential for good. We believe that whanau are best able to determine their own solutions. We are committed to a system based on justice that heals rather than on justice that hammers—a system that must celebrate and actively engage all members in the pursuit of collectively owning the people and the problems daily life can bring. 
So in thinking through the implications of a children’s prison it would seem that having jail for 12-year-olds will just create schools of crime where young fertile minds are exploited and the rules and rigid roles of the game are used as training programmes for crime. The Maori Party says that that system is wrong. This bill is wrong. It is as Children’s Commissioner Cindy Kiro has stated “knee-jerk lawmaking”. Instead of looking to target the people whom Ron here describes as young thugs who bash people in the street we must look at ways to reduce the offending to rehabilitate youth and to not set them on a life of crime. 
Ron Mark 
: Tell us then how. 
Dr PITA SHARPLES 
: I will in the next bill. 
The Maori Party believes that the family group conference may need a review but with the correct persons present it is still a positive plan for saving young people and for safeguarding our communities. We must work together to make communities take responsibility for their offending youth. The Maori Party does not support this bill.