Hāpaitia frequently asked questions

In 2018, as part of the Hāpaitia project, we began working on long term solutions to improve community safety and the way justice works.

Below are some common questions about the initiative:

What was Hāpaitia set up to do?

What was the objective?

Who was involved in Hāpaitia?

What did it achieve?

What difference did it make?

Has the programme made things better for Māori?

To what extent was the Hāpaitia programme of work reflective of a modern Treaty partnership?

Has the programme made things better for victims?

What has the programme learned about justice transformation?

What happened to all the stories that were shared with Te Uepū and with justice agencies?

What happens next?

What was Hāpaitia set up to do?

The Hāpaitia te Oranga Tangata Safe and Effective Justice Programme was established to provide a foundation for enduring change of the criminal justice system. It was established to create space for reform and enable those delivering justice services to make the changes needed to build a more humane and effective criminal justice system for Aotearoa New Zealand.

A common purpose, public confidence and strong Treaty-based partnerships with Māori were identified as the necessary foundation to sustain effort that would be required over successive terms of Government to create this system.

What was the objective?

The initial objective of the Programme was to hear what the public had to say and to set a new direction and vision for the criminal justice system. The first steps of the programme were to:

Launch a public conversation on criminal justice reform at a public Justice Summit (held August 2018)
Establish an advisory group, Te Uepū Hāpai i te Ora, to help lead the public conversation, identify a purpose for the criminal justice system and principles to guide its future development, and to identify the types of changes needed for reform of the system over the long term (Turuki! Turuki! Move Together! Transforming our criminal justice system published December 2019).

It is acknowledged that change over a range of areas are needed to effect change, including policy and legislative settings, investments in services, organisational culture and workforce capability. Therefore, at the same time as these initial steps were being taken, a range of initiatives were developed and implemented across the justice sector to respond both to immediate pressures on the criminal justice system as well as calls for fundamental reform.

Who was involved in Hāpaitia?

The Hāpaitia te Oranga Tangata Safe and Effective Justice Programme involved people and whānau from all over Aotearoa New Zealand. They contributed diverse views and experiences of the criminal justice system and participated in the conversation about what should change in many different ways – kanohi ki te kanohi (in face to face meetings), via social media channels and in writing.

The Programme was primarily coordinated by a Team based in the Ministry of Justice’s Sector Group. However, it benefitted from significant contributions from within the wider Ministry of Justice, from NZ Police, and Ara Poutama Aotearoa Department of Corrections, among other Government agencies.

A range of others also made significant contributions. They included:

The Chief Victims Advisor to Government Dr Kim McGregor, who organised a survey of victims, convened a victims’ conference and made a number of recommendations for change to Government in her report: Te Tangi o te Manawanui Reommendations for Reform.
The Chief Science Advisor to the Justice Sector, Professor Ian Lambie, who established the Justice International Network NZ, to engage social scientists, lawyers, policy makers, practitioners and Indigenous experts who can provide advice, analysis and reporting on New Zealand’s criminal justice reform and transformation.
Te Uepū Hāpai i te Ora, the Advisory Group appointed by the Minister of Justice to help lead the public conversation about what people in New Zealand want from their criminal justice system and to canvass a range of ideas about how the criminal justice system can be improved. They published their findings and recommendations for change in two reports, He Waka Roimata Transforming our criminal justice system and Turuki! Turuki! Transforming our criminal justice system.

In addition, others independently initiated action that is contributing to the change that, through Hāpaitia, New Zealanders have said they want. Some groups received support from the Hāpaitia programme, including:

Te Ohu Whakatika, a group of Māori who attended the Justice Summit in August 2018 and who convened the hui Māori held in Rotorua in April 2019, recommendations from which were published in the report Ināia Tonu Nei. Leading from this hui and report the group, Ināia Tonu Nei, has been established and has formed a mana ōrite relationship with the Justice Sector Leadership Board.
The Media Working Group, a group of senior journalists and academics that came together and, with support from Te Uepū, commissioned some research to understand what the very best crime reporting looks like. This group has subsequently established a project that has the aim of helping New Zealand media be world leaders in criminal justice reporting by providing tools, training and incentives for best practice.

What did it achieve?

Through the public consultation, and subsequently published reports , a new direction and vision has emerged for the criminal justice system – one that is:

structured in a way that reflects Te Tiriti responsibilities
a part of the community, not held at arm’s length; and where accountability is created through connection with communities, not by separating people from their whānau and families
builds the oranga (wellbeing, which includes safety) of people, whānau and communities – this should be just as important as protecting rights and procedural justice.

This vision and the recommendations contained in the reports are inspiring a range of new initiatives across the justice sector including, for example:

The establishment of a mana ōrite relationship between Ināia Tonu Nei and all justice sector chief executives to enable sector agencies to work together with Māori, identify options to do things differently, and recognise the importance of having Māori voices at the table
Development of an Adverse Incident Learning System, which is an inter-agency review process to facilitate a dispassionate examination of what leads to sentinel events or adverse incidents caused by gaps, weakness or failures of the criminal justice system as a whole
Establishment of a Media Guidelines Group, a group of media professionals and academics with a shared ambition to make crime and justice reporting in New Zealand the best in the world
The Innovative court programme, which is partnering with mana whenua to co-design of new courthouses in Tauranga and Whanganui.
The vision and recommendations are also being used to inform agency strategies and projects such as the Justice Cluster Pilot – a Minister of Finance directed initiative to better deliver government strategic priorities in a financially sustainable way and enable justice Ministers to make more strategic investment decisions.

What difference did it make?

Emphasis within the justice system is shifting away from punishment as the most appropriate response to crime, to interventions that work to keep people safe.

Because the problems experienced in the criminal justice system have taken over 150 years to develop, they cannot be completely reversed in only a few years. However, changes associated with this shift are beginning to deliver results, for example:

The Alcohol and Other Drug Treatment Courts are proving to have a positive effect on reoffending and wellbeing. An evaluation has shown that AODT Court participants are:

less likely to reoffend, less likely to be in prison and less likely to be involved with Police
experience better relationships with whānau, improved health, and better connections with work or training, and with cultural and spiritual values.

An evaluation of the Police-led Te Pae Oranga initiative has shown that it reduced harm from reoffending by 22%
After years of substantial increases, the prisoner population has fallen. In May 2021 there were fewer than 8,500 prisoners compared to a high of around 10,500 in 2018.

Has the programme made things better for Māori?

In some ways, it is too early to tell. However, a consistent theme of the public engagement was that the Crown has failed to work with Māori as a Treaty partner, has failed to deliver a justice system that works for Māori and will fail to improve justice outcomes for Māori if Māori are not leading reform. While this theme is not new (Māori have been voicing these concerns for decades), the Crown is now beginning to respond to them, for example:

A Mana Ōrite (equal power) governance model between Māori, (represented by Ināia Tonu Nei) and the Crown (represented by the Justice Sector Leadership Board), making tikanga Māori and Te Ao Māori values central to the justice system
Agencies have been building their capability to work in partnership with Māori (NZ Police, Ministry of Justice and Ara Poutama Aotearoa have now all have appointed Māori leaders at a Tier 2 level), which is enabling sector agencies to work better with Māori to identify options to do things differently.

To what extent was the Hāpaitia programme of work reflective of a modern Treaty partnership?

While not initially designed to work in partnership with Māori, the Hāpaitia programme had an ambition to put te ao Māori at the centre. Mistakes were made but, thanks to the generous responses of Māori who worked with the programme, a relationship has now developed between the Justice Sector Leadership Board (JSLB) and Ināia Tonu Nei (ITN), that reflects many aspects of the Treaty and has promoted greater understanding of the Crown’s Treaty responsibilities across the Programme.

Actions taken to attempt to build the partnership, included:

Seconding a senior Māori policy advisor at the outset of the programme
Inviting a senior Māori community leader to facilitate the Summit
Being fundamentally driven by the need to address massive outcome inequalities for Māori
Being open to, and making genuine efforts to respond wholeheartedly to calls for more space for Māori voices
Supporting Māori to come together to create the space they needed
Supporting Māori to speak in the way they wanted
Acknowledging the centrality of Māori in criminal justice narratives, analysis and responses
Openly presenting the facts of decades of institutional and structural racism (both direct and indirect), and the ongoing failure of government-led initiatives to effectively address the disproportionately negative impact of the system on Māori
Attempting to go where Māori were, respecting tikanga wherever that was
Recognising our lack of competency to engage with Māori and seeking to upskill by, for example, drawing on expertise from Te Arawhiti
Promoting and enabling ITN as an equal partner with JSLB in the vision of a transformed criminal justice system, while acknowledging that this relationship is just one among many examples of Treaty-based relationships that government can develop with iwi and other Māori roopū.

Has the programme made things better for victims?

In some ways, it is too early to tell. However, a consistent theme of the public engagement was that the criminal justice system is not meeting the needs of victims, sometimes retraumatises them and they are losing confidence in it.

Senior leadership within the justice sector has consequently acknowledged the need for a stronger senior management focus to improve the experience of victims of crime who engage with the criminal justice system. A cross-agency tier-3 Victim’s Leadership Group has consequently been established to strengthen agencies’ work for victims. This group will work to ensure that agencies maintain a focus on the needs of victims and promote action and collaboration among sector agencies to this end, including by maintaining oversight of its own work programme.

What has the programme learned about justice transformation?

From the beginning, the programme recognised that criminal justice was what has been termed a ‘wicked problem’. That is, the problem of criminal justice:

Is highly complex with many interconnecting parts
Is, in many ways, likely to be a symptom of other problems (for example, institutional racism, poverty)
Has many explanations, depending on any individual’s or group’s perspective
Is likely to have any number of solutions but these will generally be neither ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ – only ‘good’ or ‘bad’.

It was therefore recognised that a ‘traditional’ approach to solving the problem of the criminal justice system, in which the problem is analysed, and a set of solutions are prescribed by experts, was not going to work. Rather it was recognised that what was required was a new approach – one that encouraged diverse thinking and valued the voice of experience, one that demanded high levels of collaboration (involving everyone), and one that actively sought to honour the Crown’s Treaty responsibilities to Māori.

To the extent that the approach taken to Hāpaitia was new, the programme was necessary ‘learning as it went’. This approach was disruptive, and the issues were frequently ambiguous. It required a level of risk-taking, iteration and, sometimes, acceptance of failure as well as very significant success.

More significant lessons included that:

Opening a conversation makes room for people (from inside and outside of Government) to step up as leaders for change – sometimes in surprising ways
True collaboration is harder than people think – it is frequently necessary to give up things in order to get a benefit, and this can lead to resistance to what is perceived as loss
While it is not possible to solve a problem with the same thinking that caused it, shifting thinking is challenging, takes time and requires open, honest, bold and ongoing communication and dialogue
There is a lot of good will to change, but current capability gaps, particularly in regard to the Crown’s ability to partner effectively with Māori, will mean that progress may be slower than many would like – at least until these capability gaps can be actively closed
It is highly likely that solutions needed for criminal justice problems have been identified before – the voice of the past can be as important as the voice of the present
There is still a long way to go but a shared sense of direction is powerful motivation to take the series of steps required to get to a better future.

What happened to all the stories that were shared with Te Uepū and with justice agencies?

Hāpaitia was an engagement-led programme and we have listened to a broad range of individuals, groups and organisations who volunteered to share their perspectives, ideas and experiences of the criminal justice system.

We recognise and are indebted to all who contributed to the Justice future conversation and reports.

The data collected contains no personal identifiers, has been anonymised and is classified as in-confidence. All data is stored on Ministry of Justice premises in accordance with the Ministry’s data and information storage policy under General Disposal Authority 7. The information collected will remain under custody and control of the Ministry of Justice.

What happens next?

All justice agencies will continue the process of change that the Hāpaitia programme sought to initiate through its public engagement. They can be expected to increasingly re-focus their activities in the direction Hāpaitia has set. This means working towards a system that:

treats all people with humanity, dignity, respect and compassion
recognises the mana inherent in all people and communities
enables the restoration of that mana whenever it has been diminished
works with communities to help build resilience among families, whānau and communities to prevent crime and keep all people safe.

It is likely to take up to a generation before the vision that has emerged through the Hāpaitia engagement can be fully realised. However, a good start has been made with initiatives including, among many other things:

The New Zealand Police run the initiative Te Pae Oranga (Iwi Community Panels), which is a nationally coordinated partnership with iwi Māori providers across 11 Police districts to address low-level offending
The judicially-led Te Ao Mārama, which is a new model for the District Court that will enable more solution-focussed courts, that better partner with Māori and the community and includes court pilots, such as the Alcohol and Other Drug Treatment Court, the Rangatahi Court, and the Family Violence Court.
Ara Poutama Aotearoa – Department of Corrections new strategic direction, represented through Hōkai Rangi, which seeks to innovate to find new and alternative ways of doing things to achieve better outcomes with Māori and their whānau
The Joint Venture on Family Violence and Sexual Violence, which is a whole of Government response made up of 10 Government agencies working on the prevention and elimination of family and sexual violence.

Additional initiatives that change the way investment decisions are made, that make changes to policy and practice, that change legislation and that build on the good start that has been made can be expected in the future.