Youth Justice: Releasing the power of Families and Communities

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Youth JusticeReleasing the power of Families
and Communities

• Mike Doolan, ONZM
• Senior Fellow
• University of Canterbury NZ
• American Humane Fellow

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The situation we faced

• Disproportionate responses to peoples of colour
• Peoples of colour over-represented in child
  welfare and justice systems
• Children alienated from their families, wider kin
  networks and cultural contexts
• Numbers and institutional responses escalating

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Our view of the causes

• Institutional racism (and class-ism)
• Professional belief systems
• Lack of advocacy for marginalized people
• Agencies losing touch with their communities

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Government responses

• Formal acknowledgement of institutional racism
• A commitment to address and rectify the situation
• New law to ensure wider family groups have an
  effective voice in decision-making

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Change Drivers in NZ

• HRC report 1982 Youth and the Law 1983 Maatua
  Whangai 1983
• Puao te Ata Tu (Daybreak) 1986
• Child Legal Advocacy 1979
• Lack of community confidence
• Lack of professional confidence
• Abuse of powers
• Looming costs

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Former System

• Uneven diversion
• Court-centered
• High number of arrests
• High levels of incarceration
• Due process concerns
• No evidence of effectiveness
• No leadership agency silos

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Pathways in criminal justice
Orthodox
Custody
Detection
Prosecution
Adjudication
Sentencing
Community
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Literature Themes - Youth Justice

• Due process concerns
• Ineffectiveness of criminal justice system in
  generating behavior change
• Harmfulness of incarceration and congregation
• Harmfulness of professional discretion

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Literature Themes SW Practice

• The importance of relationships in helping
  services
• The importance of working with people in their
  own contexts
• The importance of helping people build and
  strengthen their social networks
• Empowering family and community systems

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Restorative Themes

• Personal responsibility
• Determining impact of offending
• Participation in resolving matters
• Putting things right
• What happened?
• Who was affected?
• What can be done to repair the harm?

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Youth Justice practice principles

• Responsibility
• Diversion
• Proportionality
• Equality

• Determinacy
• Specificity
• Frugality

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The new system

• Two central paths to reducing future offending
  potential
• Holding the young person accountable for their
  offending
• Dealing with them in ways that help them become
  good citizens

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The new system

• Police empowered to divert from involvement with
  the formal court system
• Any proposal to prosecute activates a referral
  for a family group conference
• The Youth Court adjudicates defended matters or
  when a FGC cannot agree
• FGC required to advise courts post adjudication

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Practical purposes of the Family Group Conference

• Decision-making and case planning
• Enabling discourse between sets of legitimate
  interests
• Mitigating power imbalances
• Making consensus-based plans
• Ensuring that plans are effected

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The FGC Model
Referral
Independent Coordinator
Preparation

• Information sharing
• Private Time
• Agreeing Plans

Monitoring
Review
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Holding the FGC

• Independent Coordinator
• Preparation time and resources
• Involving victim
• Sharing clarifying information
• Confirming offence is admitted
• Private family time
• Agreeing plans
• Agency acceptance and planning for follow-up

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Practice Issues

• Accountability versus shaming
• Helping versus due process
• Offender issues versus victim issues
• Cultural differences workers offenders victims

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FGC EVIDENCE (Summary)

• High levels of participation
  (especially men)
• High plans agreement
• High family/child approval
• Referrers assess plans better or as good

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Factors Associated with not being reconvicted

• Meeting victims and apologizing to them
• Feeling involved in the FGC and agreeing with
  outcome
• Completing tasks that were agreed
• Memorability of the process
• (Maxwell and Morris, 2001)

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After 15 years?

• Police apprehensions of children declining all
  categories
• Police apprehensions of offending young people
  are declining (except violence) -2006 the lowest
  in 10 years
• Cases going to court dropped by 58 between 1987
  and 2001
• Incarceration has dropped by more than 66
  between 1987 and 2001
• 80 of cases dealt with by police diversion
• 70 of young persons having an FGC have only one

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After 15 years? (Contd)

• 85 of family group conferences reach agreement
• 80 of FGC plans included repair of harm that had
  been caused
• Half the plans include re-integrative provisions
• Victim presence promotes restorative outcomes
• Whole system has become more restorative and less
  punitive over time

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NZ Research Conclusions

• Negative effects result from
• Embeddedness in the criminal justice system
• Severe and retributive outcomes
• Stigmatic shaming
• Positive effects result from
• Empowerment of family and community
• Repair of harm
• Re-integrative outcomes.
• Maxwell (2003)

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Restorative Justice
Offender focused justice system
Victim focused justice system
Orthodox
Restorative
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NZ Youth Justice System
Offender management
Offender focused justice system
Victim focused justice system
Restorative
Orthodox
Youth Justice
Re-integrative and Restorative
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Restorative Justice NZ Youth Justice

• Victim centered, offender involved
• Focus on parent(s)
• Offender/victim meeting context for resolution
• Victim needs led

• Offender centered, victim involved
• Focus on wider family
• Extended family meeting context for resolution
• Offender needs led

Doolan 2005
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Restorative Justice NZ Youth Justice

• Depends on offender insight and remorse
• Successful outcome is restorative plan
• Goal is restoration, not family empowerment

• Depends on family ownership
• Successful outcome is family management plan
• Goal is family empowerment can have restorative
  outcome

Doolan 2005
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Benefits for workers?

• Reduces conflict
• Participation improves ownership compliance
• More productive and satisfying working with
  strengths than deficits
• Staff not going it alone
• Shifts activity of control and restoration from
  the professional to the family/community system
• More hands and heads easier on staff
• Changes institutional cultures