The Long March

Lil Richy Rogue died of a heart attack last year, aged 46. A proud and highly-respected senior member of the Mongrel Mob’s Rogue Chapter, Lil Richy was felled by his dependence on the innocuous-looking crystalline powder methamphetamine, commonly known in New Zealand as the drug ‘P’.

While Lil Richy was a leading member of a gang with a fearsome reputation for killings, rapes and dealing and manufacturing hard drugs, he was also a much-loved husband, a father of eight daughters and a grandfather to two boys.

Since his death, Lil Richy’s wife, Leila, has become part of a movement within the Mongrel Mob that is attempting to extricate itself from a past blighted by imprisonment, addiction and violence, and to take its place in the society it once bitterly rejected.

‘Hauora’ addiction treatment programme

Still struggling with grief, Leila recently completed the pioneering ‘Hauora’ addiction treatment programme, designed and run by The Salvation Army and the Notorious Chapter of the Mongrel Mob. Hauora is a Maori philosophy of holistic health that looks at the physical, mental, social and spiritual aspects of a person’s wellbeing.

Leila says methamphetamine use, dealing and manufacturing had become an ingrained part of life, but her husband’s death was the agonising shock that made her examine her own habit and face the fact that some of her children were dabbling with the drug.

Leila and 11 Notorious members and associates undertook the Hauora Programme at a holiday complex in Turangi, a small town at the southern end of Lake Taupo. It followed the first programme for Notorious members, held last October in Kakahi, near Taumaranui. Work is mainly around the use of methamphetamine but also extends to alcohol and other drugs.

The programmes mark a major success for Notorious, which endured years of knock-backs from politicians, officials and treatment organisations as it tried to find a way out for members addicted to methamphetamine.

Of the 12 Notorious members who attended the inaugural drug and alcohol addiction treatment programme, 10 have stayed clean. The two who relapsed attended the recent programme in Turangi. Relapse is part of recovery for many people, explains Salvation Army Addiction Services National Manager Major Lynette Hutson.

She says recovery from addiction is a long-term process, but results from the initial programme so far compare favourably with mainstream treatment programmes. ‘It’s having remarkable results,’ says Lynette. ‘I think we have to be realistic that it’s not perfect, but it’s proving to be very, very effective so far.’

A troubled community

The Mongrel Mob evolved in the Hawke’s Bay in the late 1960s. Its founders’ antisocial behaviour was said to be a reaction to the often-brutal treatment they received in foster care and borstal.

The Mob became an alternative community for young men estranged from their families as Maori moved from their rural homes to the towns and cities for work. Its chapters, now numbering around 30, developed independently, essentially becoming the hapu of the Mongrel Mob iwi.

For the past decade and a half, family—particularly the missed opportunities of parenthood for members behind bars—has been the driving force behind the Notorious Chapter of the Mongrel Mob.

The chapter was founded in 1980 by President Roy Dunn and two of his brothers. Recruiting was done primarily in New Zealand’s prisons, and those selected were patched Mongrel Members who had mana, a particular standing in the gang. In effect, they formed an elite chapter of the Mob.

Jail was an important rite of passage for a Mob member. But by the 1980s, senior Notorious members had children and were finding imprisonment and fatherhood an increasingly-unworkable combination.

One man’s changing path

During a 10-year prison sentence in the late 1980s, senior Notorious member and chapter coordinator of the Hauora Programme, Edge Te Whaiti, decided that it was time for a change of direction.

‘I had given up responsibility of raising my first two children and I didn’t think that was what a father does,’ Edge says. ‘So it made me look at myself, it made me look at the Mob, and it made me look at the future and what my role in the Mob would be.’

He got involved in designing a programme for Mob inmates, which was approved by prison management. The personal development programme included physical fitness, education and vocational training. Another initiative developed at the time, a trust called the Mob Advisory Panel, helped with training, employment and housing of Mob members.

But released from prison, Edge found his new ideas were too radical for most chapter members.

A few years later, the chapter, under Roy Dunn’s direction, started working with South Auckland community worker Sam Chapman. They laid out rules for the chapter, with the central tenet being that ‘the children must come first’. The message to members was ‘if you won’t put your kids first, hand in your patch and leave’.

With scant outside support, the chapter made slow progress—but it was progress all the same.

The scourge of P

By the end of the 1990s, methamphetamine threw up a major obstacle. The drug was gaining in popularity and easily available in New Zealand. Its use and dealing in the drug spread through the Mongrel Mob like a virus.

Edge says Notorious’ leadership began to notice a dramatic decline in the health of many Mongrel Mob members. ‘When you have members of status shrunken down to a shadow of their former selves … well, it’s not a good feeling.

‘As a result of that, we witnessed bodies dropping left, right and centre,’ Edge continues. ‘What interested us was the coroners’ reports showing that they [the deceased] had unusually-enlarged hearts, which was an indicator for us that, hey, the bros had been using P—and this is what’s killing them.’

Salvation Army Auckland Bridge Programme Coordinator Cynthia Young, who helped design the Hauora Programme and provides clinical supervision to its three counsellors, says methamphetamine has the potential to do a lot of damage.

Some of the downside effects of heavy use include poor sleeping patterns, itching of the skin, cardiovascular problems such as stroke or heart attack, repetitive and obsessive behaviours, paranoia, methamphetamine psychosis, and death.

Desperate for treatment

Edge says Notorious’ leadership knew that sending members to conventional drug treatment centres individually was unlikely to get the results they wanted, but requests to the Government for support to get a programme established were declined.

Then, two years ago, The Salvation Army was approached on the chapter’s behalf by retired Auckland surgeon Laurie Smith and Auckland entrepreneur Perry Knight. Perry passed away last year.

Eight months of meetings between Notorious and Addiction Services personnel followed, as the parties hammered out what the chapter wanted to achieve and how a treatment programme might be customised to meet those aims.

But once the programme was developed on paper, there were no obvious funding sources for the treatment. The Salvation Army committed to funding the first programme and Lynette put out feelers to the Ministry of Health to see if its support could be counted on.

As Lynette prepared to leave for the first programme at Kakahi, she received news that the first five programmes would be funded under a Government methamphetamine initiative launched by Prime Minister John Key.

Family and identity

The Hauora Programme takes the Bridge Programme’s established community approach to addiction treatment a few steps further, using the tight nature of gang life as a force for positive change.

Notorious’ leadership required whanau to be involved where possible. The rationale was that if long-term success was to be achieved in fighting P addiction, the wider family as well as the recovering family member would have to change some behaviours. Family understanding and support would also bolster the addicted family member’s recovery—an aspect of treatment that Lynette describes as a major strength of the programme.

Several family groups have taken part in the programmes at Kakahi and Turangi. The children attend local kohanga reo and schools during the day, and partners take part in parts of the programme and help with catering and the practical side of running the programme. Several senior chapter members help guide and support the clients.

Another important and successful aspect is the emphasis on tikanga Maori: customs and traditions. Several clients spoken to said it was the first time they had studied Maori tradition and that they would continue with it after the programme.

Change for the future

Lynette says that throughout the preparation of the programme, her colleagues in the treatment sector and in Government departments were highly sceptical and thought The Salvation Army was crazy to get involved with the Mongrel Mob.

‘The message was: “Well, good on you for doing it … but you know you’re wasting your time!” ’

But Lynette describes The Salvation Army’s role in helping the chapter meet its objectives as the ‘essence’ of The Salvation Army’s mission and that of the Gospel. ‘When approached by the Mob and they explained what they were doing, there wasn’t a choice. We had to do it.’

The past two years of her involvement with Notorious has shown Lynette that the chapter has been on the road to redemption for many years—it is sincere and will not contemplate defeat. ‘They are motivated to succeed. Whatever the odds, they intend to win.’

Edge says the chapter remains as staunch and uncompromising as it has always been, but its focus has shifted beyond the turf wars of the past. ‘Now we have another challenge, and we are still tough, we are still the best, it’s just a different fight and a different style.’

by Jon Hoyle (for War Cry magazine)