Maori Focus Units aim to reduce an offender's risk of re-offending by:
- Helping participants understand and value their Maori culture and its evolution.
- Helping participants understand how their Maori culture influences themselves, their families and their communities.
- Motivating participants to change their behaviours with the support of other intervention programmes provided by the Department.
- Staff and prisoners working together to learn and apply the principles of tikanga (correct procedure) Maori to thoughts, beliefs and actions.
Eligibility
To be admitted to a Maori Focus Unit, prisoners must have :
- Attended a tikanga Maori programme in order to gain an insight into the Unit's environment.
- A minimum and low medium security status.
- Passed a selection process.
Prisoner obligations
To remain in the Maori Focus Unit prisoners must:
- Comply with the Maori Focus Unit behavioural guidelines.
- Remain drug free.
The units themselves
- The first Maori Focus Unit opened at Hawkes Bay Prison in 1997. Since then, Maori Focus Units have been established at Waikeria, Tongariro/Rangipo, Rimutaka and Whanganui Prisons.
- Each Maori Focus Unit is housed in a stand-alone 60-bed unit.
- Units are open to all nationalities.
At Whanganui Prison, the Maori Focus Unit includes a Drug Treatment Unit. A first for the Department of Corrections, it aligns two therapeutic community approaches to rehabilitation in the one residential unit.
Prisoners can address their addictions while at the same time strengthening their cultural identity, both of which help reduce reoffending.
