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"A 2003 Ministry of Social Development report showed that families who had strong Christian belief systems of any kind were more resilient to disasters, tragedies or disadvantage." - Kim Workman.
AUCKLAND NZ (ANS) -- Prison programmes with a religious aspect work best.
This comment by New Zealand High Court Judge Justice Eddie Taihakurei Durie is backed by Kim Workman, the leader of Rethinking Crime and Punishment, who says the Government needs to give more acknowledgement to the effectiveness of faith or spiritually based programmes in helping to turn the lives of Maori offenders around.
Mr Durie made the comment in a paper he presented at a New Zealand Parole Board conference. In it he called for more rigorous research into offending by Maori.
He also drew attention to the reluctance of Government departments to support programmes for Maori which have a religious or spiritual dimension.
Mr Workman, who is also the national director of Prison Fellowship NZ, recommended Mr Durie's paper as "obligatory reading" for anyone wanting to understand the nature of Maori societal dysfunction today.
He also backed the judge's calls for an independent research centre into Maori offending.
Mr Workman said a 2003 Ministry of Social Development report showed that families who had strong Christian belief systems of any kind were more resilient to disasters, tragedies or disadvantage. They tended to cope better because of a belief in a higher power.
The New Zealand Herald recently quoted scientists at Otago University as saying breaking an addiction required a "higher power."
Mr Workman said the impact that faith based units in prisons had on many of the inmates was evidence of their success.
"One thing that American researchers tend to focus on is religious practice - the extent to which people attend church and the extent to which they pray.
"It is really outward behaviour in response to an inner belief.
"But there is another aspect to it too, a conversion experience. Those who have one develop a new identity in Christ and then they have the opportunity to constantly affirm that identity and to explore what it means.
"By doing that you dispose of the old evil self or the offending self and replace it with the law abiding self," he said. "Really that's what happens in the faith unit."
Mr Workman said spiritually focused places or programmes like faith based units also provided the inmates with many opportunities for religious practice. This included worship, praying, Bible study and church attendance.
When they left, they took these practices with them.
"The evidence is really clear that this has a huge impact on their ability to refrain from re-offending," he explained.
"The other thing is even when they backslide, their recovery is likely to be more eased by the fact they have this framework within which to work."
Mr Workman also warned that such research needed to be conducted from a Maori perspective.
He said Justice Durie had called for a multi-disciplinary approach by Maori to look at what works for Maori in terms of the reduction of reoffending.
"We certainly know that dealing with Maori offending as an individual manifestation doesn't work well. But when you start working with Maori groups and look at their collective impact on the rest of society you get a totally different response."
Maori groups who were known for their re-offending also often had very low self-esteem and in many cases did not have a sound understanding of their own culture, he said.
"You need to develop programmes and responses to crime and offending that focus on the groups and also on peoples' strengths. Often Maori can do this when they are working with other Maori rather than having people who don't know the culture doing it."
Prison Fellowship's coordinator in Auckland, Lance Thompson, who turned his life around in the faith-based unit at Rimutaka Prison near Wellington, said offenders needed to spend less time focusing on what was wrong with them.
Mr Thompson, who has described himself as "a life transformed by Jesus", said the various programmes in prisons tended to focus on the issues such as someone's drug or anger problems.
"If you sit there focusing on that you end up repeating it because that is what is going on in your head. you have other things going on, those things are treated."
The belief in a higher power and in themselves is giving men and women a reason to get up every morning, said Mr Thompson.
Lavinia Ngatoko reports for Challenge Weekly, New Zealand's independent and non-denominational Christian newspaper / Used by Permission: ASSIST News Service www.assistnews.net
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