One of the main reasons that this section of the website exists is to draw attention to the utter stupidity of the “one-size-fits-all” attitude that has characterised the thinking, or lack of it, behind the construction of certain areas of New Zealand social policy. Everything from a wolf-whistle to a pack rape has been characterised and dealt to as “sexual abuse”, and everything from a raised eyebrow to bloody murder has been characterised as “family violence”.
For the sake of further economy of thought, the villain has in both cases been characterised as a male in close relationship.
Procrustes the bandit had an iron bed on which his victims were invited to sleep. Those too tall he cut to size, and those too short he stretched until they fit. Our Procrustean therapists have had nearly thirty years of fitting people to their pc beds and we need to rethink.
New Zealand men emerged from the hysterical idiocy of the 80s with a reputation for being predatory, misogynistic, violent and paedophilic – and possibly satanic if you throw in the unfortunate Peter Ellis, still trying to clear his name after the Christchurch creche fiasco and years in prison.
For policy makers and lazy media, the effort of ridding themselves of this stereotyped alternative to thinking has proved to be far beyond the limited intelligence – or will – of those at the helm. (Warwick Roger had a decent go at it in Metro, but nobody picked up the ball.)
No, wait! That’s not the case at all.
In an article by Simon Collins in the NZ Herald, reprinted below, we are told, uncritically, that the reason programmes for “violent offenders” are not more varied is not that programme designers are stupid or otherwise limited. They simply haven’t had enough money to provide more varied programmes.
(Come on, Simon. Call yourself a professional journalist and you’re not going to ask a few obvious questions?)
Let’s just imagine doctors telling every one of their patients, “Take an aspirin and call me in the morning,” because there was “not enough money” to design more varied and appropriate regimes to meet the needs of their clients.
It beggars imagination that so-called professional programme designers, with their snouts in the public trough for nearly thirty years, can still resort to such a pathetic “out”.
How a senior journalist like Collins could swallow this without apparent follow up questions is beyond me.
And as if that wasn’t enough, Brian Gardner, another expert who is quoted uncritically in the article, advocates the delivery of anti-violence programmes to racial/cultural groups by members of their own culture.
Hang on. Isn’t that a no brainer???
Not at all. By no means. It’s a theory that may have limited validity in some circumstances, but has no claim at all beyond that. Without supporting evidence, it is simply political correctness.
It was politically correct thirty years ago when it determined that rape and sexual abuse counselling be delivered to HELP Foundation clients by members of their own cultural community.
Apart from a few voices in the wilderness, such as Felicity Goodyear’s, nobody in New Zealand bothered – or dared – to question publically this piece of received dogma, or acknowledge that counselling by someone from their own community was a cultural minefield for some races. (In some parts of the world, in some cultures, a woman can still be condemned to death for being raped.)
We need to remember that our disapproval of domestic violence, physical or non-physical, is not something that all cultures necessarily share, or even sympathise with. It definitely is something, however, that we as a nation require of all cultures who make their home here. They do not have the right as “cultures” or “religions” to behave illegally.
Placing the delivery of violent offender programmes in the hands of those who identify culturally with the offenders may not produce the results we want. It may do, but we cannot simply assert it as a piece of dogma. Any journalist who does not ask at least a few questions around statements such as these is not doing his job, and Collins, who won an award for investigative journalism a few years back – in a different field of reporting admittedly – should know better.
Violence is not violence is not violence. Already the Otago study has demonstrated that limited physical correction – with a bare hand – can be clearly associated with better social outcomes for the children concerned than complete abstention from physical correction.
When we look at what is happening in front of us, we can often respond to it usefully.  It’s called common sense.
When we think in political constructs like this, we are dealing with a fantasy world. We are tailors making the emperor’s new clothes. Throwing money at the people who do this so they can create better fantasies is pure folly.
What I would like to see, and the Otago study is beginning to provide us with the beginnings of it, is evidence that can cut through the received bullshit that has distorted public thinking around sexuality and violence for thirty years. And then we need to act on the evidence as we have it.
I was speaking recently to a social worker friend of mine about this territory. She is very good at what she does. “David,” she said, “we are trying to change public thinking, public attitudes about violence, and when you’re doing that, it’s OK, in fact it’s necessary, to exaggerate and use extreme examples.”
I shook my head. I still think she is good at what she does, and she is a very good friend, but I have never heard her say anything that Hitler and Goebbels would have agreed with more wholeheartedly.
Simon Collins himself, in an otherwise perceptive and trenchant address to the EMPU a couple of years ago spoke approvingly of the media’s efforts at consciousness raising in social issues. Forgive me for shouting but since when have lies and less-than-half truths and distortions and omissions been legitimate methods for shifting public opinion? Common maybe, but legitimate, no.
Not in Goebbels’ time, and not in ours.
It’s not OK to make New Zealand males the scapegoats for family violence. It’s not OK to paint New Zealand males as thuggish, misogynistic, selfish, alcohol-driven, irresponsible bullies and expect us to do the mea culpa bit. I’ve seen Biggles books which contained fewer caricatures. It just puts backs up, as Bill Ralston’s back has recently demonstrated. He speaks for many of us.
And as I will do in the body of every one of these articles, I am again going to advocate that the people we need to be studying are the families in vulnerable, stressful situations where the adults involved are not being violent, to each other or to their children. Pakeha, Maori, Pacific Island, Asian, Middle Eastern, Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, Taoist, Hindu, non-religious, consciously or unconsciously they have arrived at strategies that carry them peacefully through hard times.
There is no need to seek for the seeds of violence in “Maoriness” or “maleness” or any other cliche or political construct. We do need to seek out the seeds of peaceful family life, especially where it prevails under stress.
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Domestic violence programmes don’t work, says judge
NZ Herald 4:00AM Tuesday Feb 17, 2009
Simon Collins
A top judge says programmes aimed at stopping domestic violence should be redesigned for one-off offenders and for Maori and Asian men.
Principal Family Court Judge Peter Boshier told a hui for anti-violence providers in Auckland yesterday that too many offenders were dropping out of anti-violence programmes, possibly partly because of the current “one-size-fits-all” approach.
Programme providers accepted his criticism but said they would need more money to tailor programmes to different kinds of offenders.
Offenders in some areas already face waiting lists of up to two months to get into programmes.
Under the Domestic Violence Act, all offenders – usually men – who have protection orders issued against them have to attend an approved group programme for between 30 and 50 hours. But Judge Boshier said the programmes did not suit all offenders.
“I believe we should screen in order to determine whether attendance is likely to be effective,” he said.
“If there is a one-off act of violence, which is limited to and caused by a certain context, should we really be requiring offenders to attend a programme that assumes the violence is a continuous or systematic feature of the respondent’s relationships?
He said there also needed to be more “culturally appropriate” programmes.
Almost a quarter (24.4 per cent) of respondents to protection orders in 2007 were Maori, compared with only 14.6 per cent of the general population.
Only 4.7 per cent of respondents were listed as Asian, compared with 9.2 per cent of the population, but Judge Boshier said the actual proportion was probably higher because ethnicity was not recorded for all respondents.
“Increased resources and different service provision strategies may have to be developed if the cultural needs of men from a diversity of cultures are to be met,” he said.
He said a Ministry of Justice survey of protection orders issued in the country’s 20 busiest courts in the last half of 2007 found that only 58 per cent of the offenders had completed, or were still completing, their programmes.
But only 11 per cent were prosecuted for failing to attend. Another 8 per cent had had their orders to attend discharged, 3 per cent had been jailed or left the country, 13 per cent were not prosecuted because police had lost contact with them or for other reasons, and 7 per cent had simply never been followed up.
“With 24 per cent of respondents having no good reason for not having completed their programmes, we should be concerned,” Judge Boshier said.
Brian Gardner of the National Network of Stopping Violence Services agreed with the judge’s call to tailor programmes.
“I think there was a strong challenge to the Ministry of Justice about not just paying the money but we need to see what works,” he said.
“The most effective thing about change is the connection the person delivering the programme makes with the person receiving it …
“I think there are some challenges in having adequate service provision to Maori and Pacific people, and with Asian and new immigrant communities there are real challenges having people of those cultures to deliver to those people.”
Women’s Refuge national manager Heather Henare called for stronger penalties for those who dropped out of anti-violence programmes. She said some programme providers failed to report drop-outs and police failed to follow up all reports.
But Mr Gardner said this changed late last year when the job of chasing up drop-outs was transferred from court bailiffs to police.