KEY POINTS:
Maori Party co-leader Pita Sharples says gangs are becoming part of the solution to youth violence, rather than always being the problem.
Dr Sharples, a founder of Waitakere's Hoani Waititi Marae, met gang members at the marae on Saturday to start teaching them traditional Maori martial arts, etiquette and knowledge.
He told a child abuse conference in Manukau yesterday that parliamentary moves to ban gang patches were "rubbish".
"Clamp down on crime, yes. If a gang is doing crime, lock the beggars up. But don't assume that people who form or join the roopu, as they call themselves, are all breaking the law and are there to intimidate you, even though you are intimidated by them.
"The progress we have made with the mayor's co-operation in this community with our gangs has been enormous. They used to drive by each other's pads and shoot like they did in Wanganui. Now they meet on marae and discuss problems and their differences and what they can do to defuse this new phenomenon of ad hoc street gangs based on the United States calling themselves Bloods and Crips and similar names."
Whanganui MP Chester Borrows' bill to ban gang insignia in Wanganui, introduced after last year's drive-by killing of a 2-year-old, failed to reach a vote on its first reading in Parliament last week.
In a keynote speech at the two-day Manukau conference convened by Presbyterian Support, Dr Sharples said the Government should "stop building up their bureaucracies" and devolve resources to communities.
"The communities have the ability and the know-how of what to do in their own communities. They know their communities. They always have. People who drive in to work and drive home [to somewhere else] can't do it."
He said that when he grew up in the small Hawkes Bay community of Takapau, Maori Affairs officers knew who lived in every house.
"Now there are young people setting up a relationship and having children they're not ready for in a flat at the back of a flat that you don't even know about. We have got to get back to knowing our communities. We have got to get back to empowering our communities."
He said businesses could play a useful role, citing Mainfreight's sponsorship of two schools and the Books in Homes programme. He also called on church ministers to speak out about violent incidents from the pulpit.
Presbyterian Support's Tauranga-based family violence advocate, Jude Simpson, agreed with Dr Sharpleson the basis of her own experienceas a victim of child abuse and lateras a partner of members of the Mongrel Mob and Highway 61.
"People don't get involved with the gangs as a criminal activity but because it gives people a place of belonging, a sense of having somewhere to be. For me when I was in the gangs it represented a place for me to belong. I didn't have a family that made me feel I belonged."
Ms Simpson now mentors two girls referred to her by police, one from the Mongrel Mob and one from Black Power.
"It's not because I'm anything special," she said. "When I go in, there is no judgment. You just love them really. Doing that, and being consistent, gets me a good foundation to work on."
www.ps.org.nz/Site/Northern
