Indigenous Courts, Self-Determination and Criminal Justice

✍ Scribed by Valmaine Toki

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 301
• Edition: 1°
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

In New Zealand, as well as in Australia, Canada and other comparable jurisdictions, Indigenous peoples comprise a significantly disproportionate percentage of the prison population. For example, Maori, who comprise 15% of New Zealand’s population, make up 50% of its prisoners. For Maori women, the figure is 60%. These statistics have, moreover, remained more or less the same for at least the past thirty years. With New Zealand as its focus, this book explores how the fact that Indigenous peoples are more likely than any other ethnic group to be apprehended, arrested, prosecuted, convicted and incarcerated, might be alleviated. Taking seriously the rights to culture and to self-determination contained in the Treaty of Waitangi, in many comparable jurisdictions (including Australia, Canada, the United States of America), and also in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, the book make the case for an Indigenous court founded on Indigenous conceptions of proper conduct, punishment, and behavior. More specifically, the book draws on contemporary notions of ‘therapeutic jurisprudence’ and ‘restorative justice’ in order to argue that such a court would offer an effective way to ameliorate the disproportionate incarceration of Indigenous peoples.

✦ Table of Contents

Cover
Half Title
Title Page
Copyright Page
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
Foreword
Introduction
1. Māori and criminality
A Criminality and causes of offending
B Apprehension and prosecution
C Parole
D Mental health
2. Māori and tikanga
A Who are Māori?
B What is tikanga Māori?
C Tikanga Māori and disputes
D Tikanga Māori and women
E Tikanga Māori and mental health
F Tikanga Māori in context
3. Māori and current criminal justice initiatives
A Current legal provisions, practices and policies – New Zealand
B Programmes
C Specialist courts and the New Zealand judicial system
4. Constitutional frameworks – the Treaty of Waitangi
A Introduction of European law
B Treaty of Waitangi
C Status in law
5. Constitutional frameworks – the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples
A Background
B Indigenous peoples – Indigenous rights
C Can the principles of the Treaty be used as an aid to clarify and import the rights contained in the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous
Peoples?
D Self-determination
6. Initiatives in comparative jurisdictions
A Constitutional recognition of Indigenous rights
B Criminality statistics
C Canada
D Australia
E United States of America
F Comparative jurisdiction conclusion
G A model for Māori?
7. Tikanga Māori and therapeutic jurisprudence
A What is therapeutic jurisprudence?
B Can therapeutic jurisprudence be effective for a Domestic Violence Court? Towards a tikanga Ma-ori model
C An Indigenous re-entry court for Māori?
8. A new vision
A Social statistics – a catalyst
B Equality
C Māori Land Court: an extension of jurisdiction or a Tikanga Court?
D Specialist ‘Tikanga Māori’ Court
E Conclusion
Glossary
References
Index