Q1 Why is culture (in relation to ethnicity) important to our understanding of crime

and criminal behaviour. You may contextualise to your own country and draw
on an indigenous or ethnic minority worldview to inform your opinion.

Considering culture in crime and criminal behaviour, is necessary if we want

to reduce the inequalities between dominant and non-dominant groups; It is important

to look at the role ethnic identity plays in criminal behaviour, rather than to compare

universally across groups. Without including culture, we cannot fully understand the

‘why’ of crime or criminal behaviour. Why is it, that in New Zealand, the more an

individual identifies as Maori, the more likely they are to be charged? Or

institutionalised racism with Maori, five times more likely to be prosecuted than non-

Maori? Or failure by institutions to include culture in needs and interventions?, as

seen by over representation of ethnic minorities in criminal justice systems. Prison

population statistics support this; New Zealand - Maori and Pacifica, 65%; USA –

people of colour, 60.5%; South Africa - people of colour, 98%. Legal bias increases

the possibility of negative and stigmatising taxonomy limiting future opportunities for

those affected individuals, possibly influencing more criminal behaviour. A culturally

unaware society has implications, particularly for the justice system. Understanding

culture and the wider disparities and inequalities faced by such groups, such as socio-

economic status and education, allows better understanding of crime and criminal

behaviour, producing more culturally focused, prevention strategies, programmes and

treatments; and we will be better armed to understand how these inequalities

disproportionately affect minority groups and its impact on over representation in the

criminal justice system. Enculturation is equally important in understanding why

some crimes happen. In South Africa, people have been convicted for sex with a

child. Such crimes are wrong and should be punished, but the perpetrator often does

not perceive his action as wrong, due to some cultural beliefs, that sex with a child
prevents Aids. There is a need for us to understand the under researched race and

ethnicity correlates, if we want to improve how justice systems address, process and

treat ethnic minority offenders; who are often stopped more, or arrested more by

police than other groups; receive heavier prison sentences and not understood or

treated with cultural sensitivity in most institutions.

Crime and criminal behaviour seen through a cultural lens, will improve many

areas of the justice system and outcomes for all involved. Clinicians will be more

geared to listen for stories of crime that have a cultural influence; ask the right

questions to improve current culturally absent stories; and be more culturally sensitive

in treatment, such as involving whanau in the process. A strong cultural environment

has been shown to lead to positive change in negative behaviour; understanding this

will help those working with minority groups to encourage offenders to be culturally

involved. Research will benefit, by including ethnic identity measures, resulting in

more detailed evidence for explaining disparities in ethnic versus other groups and

influence more ethnically enhanced programmes such as the Maori Focus Unit

(MFU) and Maori Therapeutic Programme (MTP) implemented by the Department of

Corrections New Zealand, aiming to provide positive learning such as tikanga-based

courses and activities, and better culturally trained and sensitive staff. For successful

outcomes, treatment and care of people in the justice system must consider culture as

part of holistic care.

“It is said that no one truly knows a nation until one has been inside its jails and a
nation should not be judged by how it treats its highest citizens, but its lowest ones.”
(Nelson Mandela).
Q2. Discuss the issues associated with predicting risk of reoffending.

The criminal justice system uses risk assessments to predict the likelihood of

an offender reoffending or being a risk to themselves or others. They are beneficial to

the justice system to determine societal risk, guide police, judges, prison officials and

parole boards in decision-making as well as the production of effective treatment

programmes. It is hard to predict future criminal behaviour purely on professional

judgement and the reason why risk assessment tools have become popular. Over the

years, risk measurement methodology has changed for the better, with improved

accuracy and effectiveness. Initially the purpose of a risk assessment was to classify

offenders according to security level of risk. Today however, they are used for many

reasons such as to facilitate effective treatment and custody purposes. Progress is also

being made to better understand the applicability and effectiveness needs. As with

anything, risk assessments come with issues. One of these issues, associated with the

prediction of future offending, is the type of risk assessment instrument used to

perform the assessment. The two types of assessment tools are actuarial and clinical.

An issue with the actuarial model, is that is a structured, statistally based tool, and

assumes universality of criminal behaviour across different populations. The clinical

approach, the 1st generation of assessment instruments, is unstructured and empirical,

using different methods to assess risk and focuses on the individual and their

behaviours, personality and mental health, considering these factors valuable in

predicting recidivism. But it comes with its own issues. Clinical assessments were

performed using professional subjectivity, historical experience and judgement, often

ignoring important data, which could lead to possible bias. The 2nd generation even

though the trend is to use them, has issues in that they are purely statistical and do not

consider any personal or social influences of the indidvidual, assuming universality,

predict the risk of groups not individuals, which could lead to racial disparity and the

risk of false positive predictions (offender predicted not to reoffend but does) and

false negatives (predicted to reoffend but does not) compounded with the risk to

public safety in wrong predictions. 3rd generation risk assessment tools, consider

personal factors for prediction of future offending; however, they do not include or

consider case management of holistic needs of an offender. These 2nd and 3rd

generation tools will probably soon be replaced with 4th generation instruments, which

will fill the gaps of earlier models, focusing on acute dynamic risk factors and adding

neuropsychosocial risk factors to assessments with a 5th generation not disregarded.

Some other issues with predicting recidvism risk, is the personal affect it has on the

assessor. Decision making such as this, can weigh heavily in aiming to ensure

predictions are correct and valid, because of the high cost of mistakes. No assessor

wants to be wrong. The need for predictions to be accurate is a big responsiblity, and

sadly the only real way we can see if an assessment is true and accurate is in

hindsight, by determining what happened agains what was predicted.

Even with issues associated with predicting the risk of reoffending,

assessments considering actuarial, dynamic and psychometric risk factors are still

better than reverting to assessing risk without them or by subjective judgement alone.
Q3. Critically examine the debate regarding – “Young people who offend should be

locked up”

At times of hurt, there is usually an element of anger and pain, where logic

and fairness usually disappear, whether you have trapped your finger in the car door

or been a victim of crime. A natural reaction to wrongdoing, is the ‘knee jerk’

response, wanting to inflict some form of punishment or retribution, and evident at

both individual and societal level. Many people when informed of or experience

crime will suggest that the offender be ‘locked up and the key thrown away’ to mean

they should never be let out of jail. Whilst I can understand this reaction in some

situations, it is often used on young offenders (14-16 years of age) for minor offenses.

This is not a well thought out response but one fuelled by media, public perception of

crime , bias and perceived lack of justice. An emotional response to an unresearched

ideology. People say this because of lack of knowledge, understanding or context. I

don’t think the average member of the public understands the factors involved in the

committing of offenses, or how ‘locking up’ our youth impacts on theirs and

ultimately the public’s future, or if they even care. Severe punishment may in some

cases have a positive affect but mostly it has a negative one, causing further trauma

and weakening already fragile societal links. Putting our young people in jail is not

the answer, when the average offender commits minor crime, and will probably

outgrow his delinquent behaviour. Compound this with the fact that the most young

offenders, are in and out in five days. What benefit could this possibly have for

treatment or reduction in criminal behaviour?

Most justice systems core focus is the protection of the public and severe

punishments or sentences are usually a reaction to public or political sentiment. This

shift to ‘tough on crime’ isn’t actually benefiting the public and it certainly isn’t
benefitting the young offender. Locking up young people is a sure way to create the

criminals of the future and is not necessary when it is proven that community

approaches aimed at stopping the offending behaviour in its tracks, are far more

effective. We have to start treating the cause not the problem. There should be public

awareness of risk factors particularly of minority groups; public perception and

labelling needs to be addressed. Funding should be spent on evidence based practices

that are effective (parenting skills education) instead of misspending on those shown

to have none. There is a need to ensure those that are ‘locked up’ are deserving and if

necessary, placed in facilities with normalised environments, small numbers, where

offenders are safe and surrounded by motivated and trained staff. We need to stop

locking up our young and unlock our young’s potential. Bart Lubow, in the video

‘Treat Young Offenders Like Your Own Child’, gets to the heart of the matter when

he suggests treating offenders like your own child, because to do so, would create a

cultural and guiding principle for positive change and poor justice systems would

disappear.
Q4. Choose ONE of the interventions discussed in the lecture or reading and discuss

its applicability to criminal behaviour.

Research suggests that youth offending has many risk factors but a strong

contributor to juvenile delinquency is associated with social structure, such as family

environment, poor parenting skills, size of family, or an inharmonious home. These

risk factors have shown a positive correlation to youth offending and criminal

behaviour, in the same way that a routine, authoritative and structured parenting style,

stable home and a good home environment has shown to decrease instances of

delinquency. Other areas associated with risk of offending in youth, are such things

as non-attendance at school or dropout, and negative peer association. It is therefore

important that interventions wishing to be effective, address these risk factors with

effective treatment. The question of delinquency prevention programs based on risk

factors, is whether a given risk factor can easily be changed, with some being more

amenable to change such as poor parenting, which can be addressed by teaching

parenting skills and family support services. Research has investigated protective

factors that may provide a barrier between the presence of risk factors and the onset of

delinquency and the possibility of recidivism. It is also noted that a risk factor

predicts an increased probability of later offending and McCord’s (1979) found in his

study of 250 boys, that poor parental supervision and harsh punishments, were strong

predictors of later delinquency in young boys, and violent offending in adulthood.

He also found that in the 12-14 year age group, a consistent link between delinquent

behaviour and peer influence. Treatment foster care Oregon (TFCO) is such an

intervention and one proven to work. Targeted at 13-17 year olds it is another

alternative solution to residential care for young people with behavioural, social or

emotional disorders which may or may not include repeated criminality. The ultimate
aim is to apply time-framed interventions in a family environment. Usually the foster

parents are trained to offer these treatments as well as care for the individual as

normal parents would. The New Zealand TFCO utilises an effective bi-cultural

kaupapa to treatment and service delivery, reflecting their core values of aroha

(empathy), whanaungatanga (kinship), wairuatanga (spirituality) and manaakitanga

(kindness). TFCO has proven through randomised trials, that this intervention

programme has positive outcomes on criminal behaviour. It reduces days spent in

institutional settings; helps prevent further escalation of delinquency and youth

violence and improves brain stress regulatory systems. It also adds value to non-

criminal attributes such as increasing academic positivity. In boys, it has shown to

reduce the number of arrests by 50% and dramatically reduce delinquency in girls.

I was involved with the introduction of a similar programme by a leading

mental health service provider linked to Oranga Tamariki; however although they had

the same professed intent, management and offering were so lacking that it negatively

affected both the young individuals in the residence as well as the professional staff.

Such initiatives which are more financially driven are detrimental to the good

intentions and work by other more socially focused organisations.

There is no simple answer to why people sexually offend as it is a complex

phenomenon with many risk factors. Over the decades, many questions of the

aetiology of sexual offending have been asked and still are important today, probably

due to insufficient conclusive answers. Research has produced some insights into the

causes but they remain very basic. Understanding the aetiology of sexual offending is

important, if we wish to develop effective prevention strategies and treatment plans,

which requires credible knowledge of underlying causes of the offending and the

victimisation, without which, our preventative measures and treatment programmes

are likely to be inefficient. An understanding of cause is equally important to assist

with how professionals manage and mitigate sex offender risk and the producing of

effective treatment programmes. One approach for all will not work with sex

offenders as despite much public belief, they are not all the same and do not fit into

any one particular category. Very few sex offenders ‘specialise’ in one type of crime,

(although their crimes are almost always sexual), and some sex offenders committ

non-sexual crimes. There is also a vast amount of misconception and stereotyping of

this particular offender. The Justice system frowns more on sexual offending than

other types of offending and is more likely to sentence an individual for a first time

sex offence than a non sex offence, which is evidenced in the prison population

statistics, where a large percentage of inmates are sexual offenders. Public

perception also has their own view of sex offending with assumptions such as; all sex

offenders are paedophiles – (whilst some are, the majority do not fit the exact

definition of a paedophile); sex offenders grab children (although it has happened, it

is the exception rather than the rule, as most victims are known to the offender and
many are within the family); sex offenders can’t be ‘cured’ or treated and will always

reoffend (the recidivism rate is decreasing – 24% (2014) and 10% (2018)).

There are several theories as to the aetiology of sexual offending but probably

the most influential one is Marshall and Barbaree’s Integrated Theory, used to explain

the pathway to child sexual offending. This theory considers dynamic and multiple

interacting factors and posits that sexual offending is a combination of several factors,

such as biological, developmental, environmental, cultural, vulnerability and

situational factors. It focuses on negative developmental influences while growing

up, which they theorise has significant impact on such things as impulse control, self-

esteem, inability to form close relationships and inability to control emotions. This

model suggests that if individuals do not learn healthy ways of meeting their needs

(sexual, social, intimacy and psychological) they are more than likely, when feeling

intense emotion (anger/loneliness), to engage in unhealthy ways to meet them such as

self gratification to deviant fantasy and child sexual offending.

This theory has many strengths, but it also has some weaknesses. In fairness

all three of the major theories have serious limitations with Marshall and Barbaree’s

model ignoring the possibility of different offending pathways being problematic; it’s

primary focus on disinhibition limits scope, and it places excessive value on self-

esteem. Research should probably aim to combine all the strengths of each model to

formulate a comprehensive explanation for child sexual offending.