'How do you fix a human being that's been damaged over years and years?'
New Zealanders who've served jail time share their stories in Harry Walker's new book A Voice for the Silenced.
Crime was not discussed when Walker spoke to former inmates for A Voice for the Silenced. Instead, their unique personal stories were his focus.
"I tried to pull out what is good about them, their whakapapa and the history that they come from.
"It's not just them, the individual in front of me, that I have to respect, but their whānau. I don't know who their ancestors are, who might be listening in. It's strange saying that, but that's how I view it. If I disrespect these guys and women in front of me that I'm speaking with, then I'm also disrespecting their ancestors."
Harry Walker has dedicated his life to social work - as a former Māori Welfare Officer, National Office Policy Advisor, Cultural Report Writer and Victoria University lecturer.
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There are people working hard to improve the New Zealand justice system, Walker says, including judges "who know what goes on", but the debilitating effects of generational trauma, marginalisation and culture loss are crystal-clear in A Voice for the Silenced.
One interviewee phoned up later just to thank him for listening.
"For some of these people, this is the first time they've talked - and I listened."
Another man Walker visited for an interview said nothing to him for a long time, which he knew was a way of "testing him out".
"I was just thinking, 'I'm here. I don't mind the deafening noise of silence. And we'll see where we go."
When the man eventually started to speak, he and Walker found a connection talking about their shared link to the East Coast iwi Ngāti Porou and their respective mountains.
"We kind of connected genealogically, is how I would put it, and talked about the relationships wider than just him and I.
