Abstract:
This seminar traces ideas and philosophies that have centred on culture in the development of state criminal justice policies for penal institutions from the 1960s onwards. Separate institutions for young Māori offenders were considered as early as the 1960s by state agencies, with arguments for and against them underpinned by assumptions around offending and cultural integration. By contrast, more contemporary conceptions around offending behaviour and identity are exhibited in the development of Māori cultural assessments and treatments within the correctional context since the 1990s. The seminar explores how particular images of the criminogenic effects of culture are generated and embedded in state crime control policies over time, and examines the critical analyses of cultural understandings and approaches.