Justice pioneer warns New Zealand off US punishment model

New Zealand is the world leader for dealing with youth offending says world renowned justice expert Professor Howard Zehr, but our adult criminal system lags dangerously behind.

Professor Zehr, a Fulbright scholar senior specialist and restorative justice pioneer, says New Zealand's youth justice system is a best practice model around the world.

"New Zealand's youth model has inspired Western democracies from the UK, Canada, South Africa to the US," he says. "So I say to policy-makers and practitioners here stay on track and get it right or you'll stuff it up for the rest of us."

New Zealand's youth justice system aims to break the crime cycle by giving a voice to the victim and placing accountability on the offender. This system has reduced youth court traffic by around 90 per cent. In contrast, New Zealand's adult justice system remains focussed on punishment, with the offender often serving prison time.

Professor Zehr commends the restorative justice work with adults of more than 30 community groups in New Zealand. But he is baffled by New Zealand's unwillingness to apply the successful philosophy of the youth model to the adult system.

"There is a strange anomaly in New Zealand – you have the highest incarceration for adults but the best practice youth justice system," he says.

"The adult system is implementing some of the restorative justice approach, but I would hope it would do so on a larger scale and in a way that addresses the system as a whole."

Professor Zehr adds that before 1989 New Zealand had the highest incarceration for its young people. The restorative justice approach to youth offending has reduced this dramatically, he says.

This is Professor Zehr's sixth visit to New Zealand since 1984. He is here for six weeks on a Fulbright scholarship as senior specialist being hosted by the AUT Institute of Public Policy's Restorative Justice Centre.

While in New Zealand, Professor Zehr is meeting with representatives from the Ministry of Justice, Ministry of Education and groups of teachers, Ministry of Social Development and Youth Justice staff, the Children's Commissioner, the New Zealand Parole Board, Victim Agencies, Judiciary and NZ Restorative Justice Practitioners.

Professor Zehr is giving a public lecture on 'The Promise and Challenge of Restorative Justice':

When: 4-5pm, Tuesday September 11, 2007
Where: AUT University, WA220 (Lecture Theatre), Atrium Floor
Te Amorangi Building (A Block)
RSVP: islay.brown[at]aut.ac.nz

About Professor Howard Zehr:

Professor Zehr was the director of the first victim offender conferencing program in the US. In 1997, during the Oklahoma City bombing trial of Timothy McVeigh he was appointed by the federal court to assist the defence in working with victims. He wrote Changing Lenses: A New Focus for Crime and Justice, which is globally heralded as the benchmark of the restorative justice movement. He is currently Professor of Sociology and Restorative Justice in Eastern Mennonite University's graduate Conflict Transformation Program in the US.

For further information, please go to:
www.restorativejustice.org/resources/leading/zehr

ENDS

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