Greg Newbold

Community policing and the New Zealand Police

Police in New Zealand have a well established community‐policing tradition. The current research is based on a survey of 440 officers, or roughly 6 per cent of the New Zealand Police’s sworn personnel. We focused on the personal values, interpersonal relationships, and work situations of the officers as a way of understanding their respective levels of satisfaction with their jobs and assessment of their superiors. The goal was to determine the extent to which job satisfaction and perceptions of supervisory support varied within a national police force officially committed to community policing. The findings suggest that, even in a national police with an avowed community‐policing orientation, not all police officers perceived the work world in the same terms. We further address the policy implications of these findings.

Prisoner Perspectives on Inmate Culture in New Mexico and New Zealand: A Descriptive Case Study

Medium security prisoners in two nations provided personal insights into the inmate social systems found in their facilities: Southern New Mexico Correctional Facility is located near New Mexicos border with Mexico; Christchurch Prison is in New Zealands South Island. Besides personal biographical and sociolegal questions, the inmates in both facilities responded to a series of closed- and open-ended questions about inmate values and norms. The only modification was to cast them in terminology relevant to the prisoners in each facility. In this analysis, the authors turn to three critical dimensions of alleged inmate values. Inmate orientations on qualities or features in others that they respect provide the first focus. The second explores the respect given to a series of 15 different types of criminal offenders. The final focus is the nature and extent of prison code adoption in both facilities. The authors also address several theoretical and practical concerns revealed by these analyses.

Prison Research From the Inside The Role of Convict Autoethnography

A perspective that has often been absent in criminal justice research is that of former prisoners. This article discusses the establishment, in 1997, of “convict criminology,” a group of scholars producing research informed by their experiences of crime and the criminal justice process; that is, either those who have served time themselves or who have operated alongside prisoners as professionals in custodial settings. It is argued that such scholars face similar dilemmas to others in terms of emotionalism, but suggests that their emotions are of a different nature. While an “insider” perspective cannot lay claim to scientific “objectivity,” the article argues that the existence of emotion does not invalidate an “insider” criminologist’s views. Rather, the passion engendered by the experience of incarceration can add color, context, and contour to data collection, findings, and analysis and may therefore be regarded as an essential thread in the tapestry of criminological inquiry.

Policing and Gender: Male and Female Perspectives among Members of the New Zealand Police:

This study examines possible gender differences among personnel of the New Zealand Police (NZP). Prior research suggests that male and female officers may have similar workplace perceptions. Therefore, two questions guide this study: (a) In terms of perceptions of the workplace, including job satisfaction, level of perceived support, and fairness of their supervisors, are female and male sworn officers in the NZP more like each other or their same-gender nonsworn cohort? (b) What are the effects of variables such as ethnicity, age, length of service, type of work assignment, work location, and orientations toward policing on the relationships between perceptions of the workplace, gender, and sworn status? The analyses suggest that although the men and women who provide policing services in New Zealand have many similar views on policing, their perspectives are due to some what different sets of forces. The policy implications of the findings are also addressed.

The criminal use of firearms in New Zealand

Early In 1997 a survey was conducted on 51 New Zealand prison inmates who had been convicted of illegal possession of a firearm, aggravated robbery with a firearm and murder with a firearm. Respondents were asked questions relating to their acquisition and usage of illegal firearms in order to obtain information about patterns of firearms owner-ship within the criminal community. Many of the results were similar to an American study which took place in the mid-1980s but the New Zealanders differed from the Americans in being armed less frequently and in being more restricted in their access to handguns. Among the New Zealanders the most common, popular, cheap and easily acquired weapon was the shotgun. Shotguns were used in more than half the crimes for which the respondents had been imprisoned and in seventy percent of cases the weapon had a sawn off butt or barrel. The next most common weapons used were pistols and rifles. Usage of military semi-automatics was rare. This research confirms that there is a large pool of illegally-held firearms in New Zealand and that firearms of almost any type can be obtained relatively easily from within the criminal community.

Presumptive Arrest in Partner Assault: Use of Discretion and Problems of Compliance in the New Zealand Police

Abstract Since pro-arrest policies in domestic violence became popular in the United States in the 1980s, numerous western countries have followed suit. In most cases, research has shown that implementation of the policies has fallen short of expectations, with arrest rates that are surprisingly low. In New Zealand, pro–arrest strategies have been employed since 1987 and results have been similar. This article argues that one of the reasons for noncompliance in New Zealand (and probably elsewhere), is that the complexities of domestic violence situations make pro–arrest difficult to apply in practice. Moreover, in order to protect themselves from official criticism for deviating from policy, in this study frontline police sometimes filed incomplete or inaccurate incident reports. This made it hard to determine exactly how well the policy was being implemented and whether or not it was working.

Developing Convict Criminology Beyond North America

Despite its original vision of a community of ex-convict criminological and criminal justice experts, Convict Criminology (CC) has had difficulty with international expansion and has remained largely a North American movement. There are many reasons why this has occurred. This article reviews the efforts that have been made to internationalize CC in Europe and discusses some of the barriers it has faced. It also suggests prospects for moving the field forward in a truly international manner and the challenges that this entails.

Convict criminology at the crossroads

This research note critiques both the past and current status of Convict Criminology. It notes the subtle changes that have occurred within this approach to the study of corrections and the criminal justice system and some of the controversies that have emerged. It discusses these issues and makes recommendations about Convict Criminology’s future direction.

Analysing Trends in the Imprisonment of Women in Australia and New Zealand

As in the United States and many other Western nations, incarceration rates in Australia and New Zealand have risen significantly over the past two decades. An interesting aspect of this trend is that internationally, incarceration rates for females have increased faster than those for men. A number of researchers in the United States and the United Kingdom have attempted to explain this phenomenon. This article looks at two countries that are culturally similar and geographically close: Australia and New Zealand. Disproportionate rises in female prison populations are visible in these jurisdictions. Focussing on the 2001–2012 period, the reasons for the disproportionate rises in female incarceration rates are hypothesized and compared. It is suggested that while the drivers of the changes are in some cases similar, there are also some interesting differences between the two countries.

Another One Bites the Dust: Recent Initiatives in Correctional Reform in New Zealand

Abstract Since the end of the 19th century, New Zealand has experimented with a variety of correctional ideas, the majority of which have imitated progressive initiatives taken overseas. However, none of the earlier attempts proved effective in reducing recidivist rates. Undeterred, in recent years, two new and quite different programs, the first known as He Ara Hou; the second as Integrated Offender Management, have been trialled by correctional authorities. This article explains the philosophy and application of the latest two programs, and discusses why they also failed.