He Whakamāramatanga mo te Taihara: A Cultural-Ecological Perspective of Agency and Offending Behaviour

This thesis aims to outline the important role of culture in the development of the human mind and behaviour, and therefore argues that cultural information is a key part of forensic explanation. Differing cultural experiences, such as marginalisation, contribute to the differential representation of individuals and groups in criminal justice systems. Although there are multiple means through which this occurs, this thesis focuses on the role of the individual agentic process, nested within a historically-derived cultural context. Building on previous theoretical work, a preliminary model – the Cultural-Ecological Predictive Agency Model – is presented that might better assist comprehensive explanation of offending behaviour with reference to cultural processes and concepts. The model is then applied to an exemplar, compared to current approaches to rehabilitation and desistance, and some implications for forensic practice are suggested. The overall goal of this thesis is to explicate the potential cultural impacts on individuals who commit offences, and examine some of the causes of offending beyond ‘faulty individual psychology’.