Reviewing The Day Dr Anne Opie
Some months ago I agreed to speak in the last session with the intention to review the key issues raised today. This is difficult role at the best of times. I’ve realised increasingly since I agreed to do this how difficult the day could be to review, how much I wouldn’t be able to say in the allocated time and, inevitably, how I would be giving weight to some issues that others would not accord the same importance. So I shall do my best but first of all I want to thank some people because without their assistance, the Forum would not have happened.
When Liz Caughey and I approached Dean Jo Kelly-Moore in March to discuss the forum she greeted our proposal with interest and enthusiasm and suggested that the Forum be named as the Holy Trinity Cathedral’s inaugural Bishop Selwyn event because of the importance the bishop gave to the Church as a site of education and social change. So, on that very positive note, we proceeded with the development of today’s event.
But planning can only go so far. Events such as this gain their life and energy from the speakers. Our speakers, who have come from the community and voluntary sector, academia, and those who have been in prison, have brought to our attention a considerable number of complex issues about the operation of the correctional system. The ways that these complex issues get worked out over the next few years will affect us all closely because their actual or attempted resolution will shape the nature of New Zealand society and contribute to our own and others’ perceptions of what it means to be a New Zealander.
In thanking all the speakers, I also want to thank particularly the three speakers who have spent time in prison, who very valuably have drawn attention to possible areas in the prison system where change could be introduced. Speaking in public as an ex-prisoner requires determination and fortitude and I thank them for their courage in being here in this role today.
Because I have a brief time to speak I plan to comment on two areas. Firstly, I want talk about complexity and contradiction as these words have, I think, been central to the issues that all our speakers have raised. Secondly, I want to outline a possible approach to that ever-difficult question about how to effect positive organisational and institutional change. I start with these interesting words: ‘complexity’ and ‘contradiction’.
All systems, such as our correctional system, are by definition complex; they encompass and seek in various ways to hold together differently oriented and opposing imperatives and ways of thinking about the social world informed by different bodies of knowledge. Each system includes contradictory principles, actions, processes and procedures; each is cumbersome, so making changes to policies and practice difficult, and all major intended changes have to address multiple sites where change is needed, so making the possibility of achieving actual change harder. There is always ample room for unintended effects of change, although unintended effects can be beneficial.
In the correctional system, key areas of change to which speakers have drawn our attention are the importance of:
The critical issue, then, that underpins this Forum centres on how to change a system that is not working in the interests of the people caught up in it, and of the wider society; this same question has for years been at the centre of much writing, submissions to government and conferences and it can be difficult to feel that any real, positive change has been achieved as a consequence of these efforts. Indeed, the urgency of the current government re-thinking its stance on crime has been foregrounded recently by the real possibility that two young men could be sentenced to imprisonment for the terms of their natural lives, a sentence that goes against human rights treaties of which New Zealand is a signatory (Gledhill 2015). If these sentences are passed down, then they will bring into play a new and shameful dimension to New Zealand’s practices of incarceration and raise profound questions about the sort of society we intend to bequeath to our mokopuna.
In thinking about how knowledge and experience other than the knowledge and experience held by Corrections could be brought into play, it occurred to me that the structure and modes of operation of the Land and Water Forum may conceivably provide a model for developing dialogue and, crucially, change in correctional practices. In saying this, it is important to note that even if significant areas of change were to be agreed on as a consequence of inter-organisational dialogue, that change will take years to bring more fully into effect.
Government established the Land and Water Forum several years ago, funded it and appointed its independent chairperson. Its membership is drawn from the multiple and often deeply opposed groups with interests in factors including the management of water, environmental degradation and iwi rights.
Over the last several years the Forum has produced significant reports, signed off by all members, with substantive recommendations for government. Its structure and modes of proceeding draw on Scandinavian models that stress that the resolution of intractable and major national problems requires the collaboration of all players with interests in the issue and that all parties must agree to endorse all Forum resolutions before they can be formally adopted. Government has adopted approximately 15% of its resolutions, but critically these have been the fundamental ones. The Forum’s work continues, with some of it focused on doing further work on the resolutions that government did not adopt earlier.
We have, then, three critical factors to a change process: government’s acknowledgement of a significant national problem; the adoption of a collaborative approach and consensus decision-making; and the provision of funding to carry out the work. In other words, government’s buy-in and active support of a Forum is critical.
Government does not delegate its decision-making responsibilities to the Forum. It is not obliged to accept any recommendations, but is more likely to recognise that an all-members’ agreement on an issue represents a significant milestone on which it can take action. If such a collaborative, consensual process were to be established to address reform of the correctional system, then representatives of all key groups, including Corrections, would need to be at the table. Equally importantly, no one member would be more equal than others. As the experience of the Land and Water Forum has demonstrated, the processes of reaching agreement are not easy, but collaboration and consensus can be achieved over time between players who have been bitterly opposed to each other in the past. The establishment of a Prison Forum could mean that there is a chance that major changes to how in New Zealand we ‘do’ prison could be effected.
There is also a further significant gain to be made should government establish a body similar to the Land and Water Forum to seek to develop new correctional practices. Because the meaning of democracy in Western countries is being called increasingly into question, as is demonstrated by the decreasing numbers of citizens voting, an approach to change such as the one I have outlined above would emphasise that in a democratic society, challenges to government, however unwelcome, are in fact vital to democratic health. Jacques Derrida said,
it is your democratic right to criticize the insufficiencies, the contradictions, the imperfections of our systems. To exist in a democracy is to agree to challenge, to be challenged, to challenge the status quo, (. . .), in the name of the democracy to come. Democracy is always to come, it is a promise, and it is in the name of that promise that one can criticize, question that which is proposed as de facto democracy (Chérif 2008, pp. 42-43 quoting Derrida).
Responsible democratic government includes engagement with all groups, including those ‘others’ on the social margins. Critically, as Derrida then went on to argue, engagement - that attempt to open up space for discussion and debate -
is a question of responsibility. . . . I must say yes to the other, and that yes to the other is an initiative . . . it is a response. . . . . opening up and closure are not imposed from the outside; one must take the risk of the yes (Chérif 2008, p. 61, quoting Derrida).
I sincerely hope a New Zealand government in the near future will understand the urgency of taking that ‘risk of the yes’ and begin a much-needed dialogue among key parties towards reform of our correctional system.
ReferencesChérif, Mustapha. 2008. Islam and the West. A Conversation with Jacques Derrida. With a Foreword by Giovanni Borradori and translated by Teresa Lavendar Fagan.
Foucault, Michel. 1997. The punitive society. In Paul Rabinow, ed Ethics: Subjectivity and Truth. The Essential Works of Foucault 1954-1984.
Gledhill, Kris. 2015. Prisoners and human rights: A balanced framework. Paper presented at the Inaugural Bishop Selwyn Event, “Looking into Prison. Exploring 21st Century Practices and Principles, 17 October 2015, St Mary’s-in Holy-Trinity Cathedral, Auckland http://prisonforum2015.weebly.com/prison-forum-papers.html
Human Rights Commission. 2014. Monitoring Places of Detention. https://www.hrc.co.nz/files/7014/2398/7092/2014-OPCAT-Annual-Report.pdf
McNeill, Fergus and Whyte, Bill. 2007. Reducing Reoffending: Social Work and Community Justice in Scotland. Cullompton, Devon: Portland, Or.:Willan.
Opie, Anne. 2012. Vision narratives, hope and transitions in the Antipodes: Early engagement with possibilities in desistance, Probation Journal, 59 (4): 203-218.
Opie, Anne. 2014. Developing New Zealand’s Correctional System: the role of monitoring mechanisms, civil society and marginalised knowledge. https://www.anneopie8.wix.com/correctional-issues
Some months ago I agreed to speak in the last session with the intention to review the key issues raised today. This is difficult role at the best of times. I’ve realised increasingly since I agreed to do this how difficult the day could be to review, how much I wouldn’t be able to say in the allocated time and, inevitably, how I would be giving weight to some issues that others would not accord the same importance. So I shall do my best but first of all I want to thank some people because without their assistance, the Forum would not have happened.
When Liz Caughey and I approached Dean Jo Kelly-Moore in March to discuss the forum she greeted our proposal with interest and enthusiasm and suggested that the Forum be named as the Holy Trinity Cathedral’s inaugural Bishop Selwyn event because of the importance the bishop gave to the Church as a site of education and social change. So, on that very positive note, we proceeded with the development of today’s event.
But planning can only go so far. Events such as this gain their life and energy from the speakers. Our speakers, who have come from the community and voluntary sector, academia, and those who have been in prison, have brought to our attention a considerable number of complex issues about the operation of the correctional system. The ways that these complex issues get worked out over the next few years will affect us all closely because their actual or attempted resolution will shape the nature of New Zealand society and contribute to our own and others’ perceptions of what it means to be a New Zealander.
In thanking all the speakers, I also want to thank particularly the three speakers who have spent time in prison, who very valuably have drawn attention to possible areas in the prison system where change could be introduced. Speaking in public as an ex-prisoner requires determination and fortitude and I thank them for their courage in being here in this role today.
Because I have a brief time to speak I plan to comment on two areas. Firstly, I want talk about complexity and contradiction as these words have, I think, been central to the issues that all our speakers have raised. Secondly, I want to outline a possible approach to that ever-difficult question about how to effect positive organisational and institutional change. I start with these interesting words: ‘complexity’ and ‘contradiction’.
All systems, such as our correctional system, are by definition complex; they encompass and seek in various ways to hold together differently oriented and opposing imperatives and ways of thinking about the social world informed by different bodies of knowledge. Each system includes contradictory principles, actions, processes and procedures; each is cumbersome, so making changes to policies and practice difficult, and all major intended changes have to address multiple sites where change is needed, so making the possibility of achieving actual change harder. There is always ample room for unintended effects of change, although unintended effects can be beneficial.
In the correctional system, key areas of change to which speakers have drawn our attention are the importance of:
- All prisoners being encouraged from their first day in prison by well trained, competent staff to begin the journey towards desistance from reoffending. No-one should have to wait years before they can begin education, training and skills development, as can happen in the current system. Nor does it make sense for them to do so, as prison erodes, among other dimensions, peoples’ sense of initiative, autonomy and self-respect, so making it eventually much harder to work with them, let alone in a way that encourages them to move towards desistance (Opie 2012). However, Corrections has a 66% rule: no prisoner can begin a rehabilitative programme until they have completed two-thirds of their sentence. If you have a 15-or-more years’ sentence (and these are increasingly common), then you would serve 10 years before you became eligible for rehabilitative programmes.
- The development in our penal system of an enriched, humanly-focused environment to achieve a ‘good enough’ system. Not a ‘world-best’ or a ‘best’ system, but a good enough one – a concept used by Donald Winnicott, a British child psychotherapist who in the 1950’s talked of ‘good enough’ parenting, so recognising that no parents (and, by extension, no system) could ever be perfect. The distance New Zealand has to go to arrive at ‘a good enough’ penal system has been tracked annually since 2007 by the Ombudsman’s Office, whose Inspectors, under the UN’s Optional Protocol for the Prevention of Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (OPCAT) monitor conditions in New Zealand prisons and report on their findings (Opie 2014). In their most recent report (published by the Human Rights Commission, in its role as the Central National Preventive Mechanism for the New Zealand agencies reporting under the OPCAT to the UN) the Ombudsman’s Office Inspectors emphasised the importance of Corrections engaging ‘in dialogue . . . to achieve a better balance of security and dignity’ (Human Rights Commission (HRC), 2014, p. 28). The word ‘dialogue’ implies a readiness by Corrections to engage closely with the highly knowledgeable community and voluntary sectors and knowledgeable people, whose work centres on issues germane to the human treatment of people held in places of detention, in order to achieve positive change.
- A government that takes seriously its responsibilities to work on behalf of all its members, and not just certain sectors; this would require a significant shift in neo-liberal economic policies because of their major contribution to the marked growth in inequality in New Zealand, so illustrating that ‘trickle down’ economic approaches are exactly that – those further down the line receive but little.
- The development of a more tolerant society in place of our rather punitively oriented society, that is, a society that understands that deprivation and punishment do not contribute to people ceasing to reoffend and that those who have been in prison need acceptance and help on their long journey toward desistance; as McNeill and Whyte (2007) wrote, the justice system in the end depends on societal tolerance. This also involves understanding that imprisonment is itself sufficient punishment and that prisons have for centuries been criticised because they create more problems than they resolve (Foucault 1997). The development of a more tolerant society is a core governmental responsibility; a responsibility that successive New Zealand governments have shirked and indeed acted against.
The critical issue, then, that underpins this Forum centres on how to change a system that is not working in the interests of the people caught up in it, and of the wider society; this same question has for years been at the centre of much writing, submissions to government and conferences and it can be difficult to feel that any real, positive change has been achieved as a consequence of these efforts. Indeed, the urgency of the current government re-thinking its stance on crime has been foregrounded recently by the real possibility that two young men could be sentenced to imprisonment for the terms of their natural lives, a sentence that goes against human rights treaties of which New Zealand is a signatory (Gledhill 2015). If these sentences are passed down, then they will bring into play a new and shameful dimension to New Zealand’s practices of incarceration and raise profound questions about the sort of society we intend to bequeath to our mokopuna.
In thinking about how knowledge and experience other than the knowledge and experience held by Corrections could be brought into play, it occurred to me that the structure and modes of operation of the Land and Water Forum may conceivably provide a model for developing dialogue and, crucially, change in correctional practices. In saying this, it is important to note that even if significant areas of change were to be agreed on as a consequence of inter-organisational dialogue, that change will take years to bring more fully into effect.
Government established the Land and Water Forum several years ago, funded it and appointed its independent chairperson. Its membership is drawn from the multiple and often deeply opposed groups with interests in factors including the management of water, environmental degradation and iwi rights.
Over the last several years the Forum has produced significant reports, signed off by all members, with substantive recommendations for government. Its structure and modes of proceeding draw on Scandinavian models that stress that the resolution of intractable and major national problems requires the collaboration of all players with interests in the issue and that all parties must agree to endorse all Forum resolutions before they can be formally adopted. Government has adopted approximately 15% of its resolutions, but critically these have been the fundamental ones. The Forum’s work continues, with some of it focused on doing further work on the resolutions that government did not adopt earlier.
We have, then, three critical factors to a change process: government’s acknowledgement of a significant national problem; the adoption of a collaborative approach and consensus decision-making; and the provision of funding to carry out the work. In other words, government’s buy-in and active support of a Forum is critical.
Government does not delegate its decision-making responsibilities to the Forum. It is not obliged to accept any recommendations, but is more likely to recognise that an all-members’ agreement on an issue represents a significant milestone on which it can take action. If such a collaborative, consensual process were to be established to address reform of the correctional system, then representatives of all key groups, including Corrections, would need to be at the table. Equally importantly, no one member would be more equal than others. As the experience of the Land and Water Forum has demonstrated, the processes of reaching agreement are not easy, but collaboration and consensus can be achieved over time between players who have been bitterly opposed to each other in the past. The establishment of a Prison Forum could mean that there is a chance that major changes to how in New Zealand we ‘do’ prison could be effected.
There is also a further significant gain to be made should government establish a body similar to the Land and Water Forum to seek to develop new correctional practices. Because the meaning of democracy in Western countries is being called increasingly into question, as is demonstrated by the decreasing numbers of citizens voting, an approach to change such as the one I have outlined above would emphasise that in a democratic society, challenges to government, however unwelcome, are in fact vital to democratic health. Jacques Derrida said,
it is your democratic right to criticize the insufficiencies, the contradictions, the imperfections of our systems. To exist in a democracy is to agree to challenge, to be challenged, to challenge the status quo, (. . .), in the name of the democracy to come. Democracy is always to come, it is a promise, and it is in the name of that promise that one can criticize, question that which is proposed as de facto democracy (Chérif 2008, pp. 42-43 quoting Derrida).
Responsible democratic government includes engagement with all groups, including those ‘others’ on the social margins. Critically, as Derrida then went on to argue, engagement - that attempt to open up space for discussion and debate -
is a question of responsibility. . . . I must say yes to the other, and that yes to the other is an initiative . . . it is a response. . . . . opening up and closure are not imposed from the outside; one must take the risk of the yes (Chérif 2008, p. 61, quoting Derrida).
I sincerely hope a New Zealand government in the near future will understand the urgency of taking that ‘risk of the yes’ and begin a much-needed dialogue among key parties towards reform of our correctional system.
ReferencesChérif, Mustapha. 2008. Islam and the West. A Conversation with Jacques Derrida. With a Foreword by Giovanni Borradori and translated by Teresa Lavendar Fagan.
Foucault, Michel. 1997. The punitive society. In Paul Rabinow, ed Ethics: Subjectivity and Truth. The Essential Works of Foucault 1954-1984.
Gledhill, Kris. 2015. Prisoners and human rights: A balanced framework. Paper presented at the Inaugural Bishop Selwyn Event, “Looking into Prison. Exploring 21st Century Practices and Principles, 17 October 2015, St Mary’s-in Holy-Trinity Cathedral, Auckland http://prisonforum2015.weebly.com/prison-forum-papers.html
Human Rights Commission. 2014. Monitoring Places of Detention. https://www.hrc.co.nz/files/7014/2398/7092/2014-OPCAT-Annual-Report.pdf
McNeill, Fergus and Whyte, Bill. 2007. Reducing Reoffending: Social Work and Community Justice in Scotland. Cullompton, Devon: Portland, Or.:Willan.
Opie, Anne. 2012. Vision narratives, hope and transitions in the Antipodes: Early engagement with possibilities in desistance, Probation Journal, 59 (4): 203-218.
Opie, Anne. 2014. Developing New Zealand’s Correctional System: the role of monitoring mechanisms, civil society and marginalised knowledge. https://www.anneopie8.wix.com/correctional-issues