Jarrod Gilbert - Criminal Justice: New Zealand

CRIMINAL JUSTICE

A New Zealand Introduction

Edited by Jarrod Gilbert and Greg Newbold

The New Zealand criminal justice system is made up of a number of complex and important pillars that support the principles of Western democratic societies. In many ways, the health of these societies depends upon the smooth and systematic functioning of judicial procedures, and this is as true in New Zealand as anywhere around the globe.

The contributors to this book have sought to introduce the key ideas, principles and frameworks that define criminal justice in New Zealand. Although many of the issues are complex and challenging, we have striven to create an interesting, readable book which will be useful to students and practitioners alike.

Criminal Justice: A New Zealand Introduction provides answers to many of the questions that people frequently find confusing about the way the justice system functions, such as: How can crime be explained? Is crime rising or falling and if so, why? How do the police operate? How do the courts work? What is the meaning of a life sentence? What is the link between crime and mental instability? Why are Mori over-represented in the criminal justice system? How do we deal with youth offenders? How do judicial miscarriages arise? Do the stories we read about crime in the media reflect reality? How does justice operate in the criminal underworld?

We have aimed to produce a book that will not only serve as a key resource for students, but will also be of value to practitioners in the criminal justice field, as well as others interested in the area. In particular we are thinking of members of the public who seek greater understanding of issues that may seem familiar but are at the same time unclear, and to students of legal studies in the nations secondary schools.

With that in mind, a number of experts in relevant areas around New Zealand were invited to offer chapters. Contributors to the book include not only a number of professorial leaders and national experts in fields like corrections, policing, gangs, court procedure and sentencing, but also non-academic experts such as Canterbury District Police Commander John Price, National Manager of the New Zealand Polices Assurance Group Mike Webb, Principal Adviser to the New Zealand Police Executive Simone Bull, Chief Youth Court Judge Andrew Becroft, criminal and youth lawyer Sacha Norrie, and award-winning journalist David Fisher. The result is a collection of fourteen chapters written by eighteen contributors with recognised expertise in specialised fields, covering a range of topics which will be of critical interest to those in the criminal justice domain.

Jarrod Gilbert and Greg Newbold

June 2017

This first section of the book has a focus on history. Trevor Bradley begins with a historical look at criminological theory from its onset in ancient Greece, following its development up to the current day. Greg Newbold then describes rises and falls in crime rates that have occurred over the last five decades and interrogates the many reasons for the changes. The subject of policing is dealt with in two chapters, with Heather Wolffram focusing on the origins and development of formal policing and John Price, Mike Webb and Simone Bull describing the organisation and practice of policing in modern times. Finally, Greg Newbold outlines how various forms of correctional sanction have evolved in New Zealand, and what the current system looks like.

TREVOR BRADLEY

Explaining the causes of crime is often thought to be a uniquely modern endeavour. Its a perception often encouraged by introductory-style books that claim the first real theories of crime appeared in the eighteenth century. The standard narrative, then, has it that crime theory progressed in the nineteenth century in tandem with science and scientific ways of thinking.

However, while the earliest criminological theories were developed in the late eighteenth century, attempts to explain crime can, in fact, be traced to antiquity. Ancient Greek philosophers had something to say about crime and how it should be punished. Indeed, some of those antiquarian ideas, like those on deterrence, continue to inform criminal justice today. The essential questions of modern criminology what crime is, why people commit crime, and what our response should be have been asked for more than two millennia. Attempts to explain crime, in other words, are almost as old as crime itself.

While there is disagreement about the precise chronology, there is near universal agreement that theories of crime are informed by the wider social, political and/or cultural contexts. Viewed from this perspective, New Zealands especially punitive approach to law and order and our exploding prison population (Dominion Post, 18 February 2016), is best understood as an ongoing legacy of political promises to get tough on crime (Pratt and Clark, 2005). Just as our responses to crime change with the times so too do our explanations of it. Crime, then, has been explained in very different ways at different points in history. As Vold, Bernard and Snipes (1998: 3) suggest, the history of crime theory may tell us more about the changing values of politics and society than it does about improved knowledge of crime.

This chapter outlines the attempts to explain crime and criminality across the ages. After a brief introduction to the nature of theory, the chapter traverses five chronological periods. First, the explanations prevalent in Ancient Greece are outlined, the earliest to have survived in written form. Next we move to the Middle Ages and the dominant theological perspective. The first recognisably modern theory of crime, the late eighteenth-century school of Classicism known contemporarily as rational choice, is considered next. This is followed by a survey of the positivist criminology of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries with its focus on biological, psychological and later sociological causes. Finally, we arrive at the contemporary era and those theories that have developed since challenges to positivist criminology first emerged. The radical theories of the 1960s and 1970s are outlined before a range of more recently developed critical perspectives on crime and criminality are presented.

According to Akers and Sellers (2004: 12), theory has an undeserved reputation, being often regarded as fanciful and bearing little connection to the real world; an attitude summed up by thats all very well in theory, but what about the facts? If properly developed, however, theory is all about the real world, real situations and real human experiences and behaviour (Akers and Sellers, 2004). Such theory can help us make sense of the facts and therefore we should not be intimidated by it. After all, most of us theorise about crime on a daily basis and instinctively react to lurid accounts of crime with our own explanations. If young people are involved, some theorise that parents are to blame for not raising their children the right way or for not adequately controlling them. Such ideas may be more common sense than criminology, but they provide a base from which more sophisticated theories develop.