• by IPS Correspondents (bangkok)
• Wednesday, December 14, 1994
• Inter Press Service

BANGKOK, Dic 14 (IPS) - Asia-Pacific countries worried about rising youth crime may well take a look at how New Zealand has made headway with a scheme based on Maori traditions.

According to Lynn Atkinson of the Australian Institute of Criminology (AIC), New Zealand's 'restorative justice' programme holds the promise of bridging the philosophical differences between the two juvenile justice models that are dominant in the region.

Australia, for example, has tended toward the 'justice' or 'due process' system favoured in the West that focuses on the provision of legal safeguards for the alleged young offender, much the same as in the adult criminal justice system.

But other Asia-Pacific countries that share cultural values and traditions emphasising social cohesion favour the welfare or what experts call the 'treatment or rehabilitative' model.

Both systems have been debated by policymakers and practitioners for years, and both have been found to have failed.

Meanwhile, officials across the region have been growing more concerned as rapid economic and social changes overtake the community and family, economic pressures, degradation of the physical and emotional environment and social inequalities drive or lure more children into various forms of criminality.

But Atkinson, speaking at a meeting of Asia-Pacific experts on juvenile justice being held in Bangkok this week, says New Zealand has stumbled upon a system that is more effective than the two dominant models of handling youthful offenders.

She describes New Zealand's way as a method based on "traditional cultures which nurture community harmony through conflict resolution mechanisms which engage all interested parties and which are directed at making good the losses incurred".

The New Zealand system of family group conferences (FGCs) began in the early 1980s as a grassroots way to deal with some minor offences by some Maori youth.

Local police referred the cases of the youths, who had admitted their guilt, for resolution and penalty to the Maori committee whose members met with the young offenders, extended family members and the victims.

The use of Maori ritual achieved a tone of 'loving concern' and helped re-connect the offenders with the values of their community, setting the stage for their re-integration.

© Inter Press Service (2014) — All Rights Reserved. Original source: Inter Press Service

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