Administrative Evil | Abuse in Care Royal Commission of Inquiry

25/7/2024

The Royal Commission’s Report on Abuse in Care has landed on my desk, and its findings are devastating.

As someone who has spent decades studying public policy and governance, I can tell you this: what we’re looking at isn’t just a collection of unfortunate incidents – it’s administrative evil in its purest form.

Let me explain this in plain language: administrative evil occurs when ordinary people working within ordinary government systems commit acts of harm while believing they’re doing their jobs properly.

This isn’t about individual “bad apples”—it’s about how an entire system was designed to fail those in its care.

The evidence is overwhelming.

Take the way officials hid behind euphemistic language, arguing that individual cases of abuse somehow didn’t meet the technical definition of “criminal abuse.” This wasn’t just bureaucratic caution but a deliberate strategy to minimise and deny harm.

The structural problems are equally troubling. Our system of governmental responsibility – both at the ministerial and chief executive levels – was so fragmented that no one could be held properly accountable. Everyone was responsible for a small piece, which meant no one was responsible for the whole. This isn’t by accident; it’s by design.

What particularly strikes me is the phenomenon of “technical rationality” – where officials followed processes to the letter while completely divorcing themselves from basic ethical considerations. They knew the rules but forgot their humanity. The State Services Code of Conduct might as well have been wallpaper.

The legal system, meant to protect the vulnerable, was weaponised against them. Officials used the Official Information Act as a shield, not a tool for transparency. They surveilled families seeking justice. They deployed lawyers to prevent this very Commission from being established. This isn’t justice – it’s harassment.

Most disturbing is how this abuse reflected and reinforced the colonial structures of our society. The pattern of who was targeted for abuse wasn’t random – it reflected deep-seated biases about who “belongs” and who doesn’t in our society. This is where administrative evil intersects with our colonial legacy in ways that should make us all profoundly uncomfortable.

We’re seeing what scholars call “moral inversion” – where harmful practices become normalised and even celebrated as good public policy. The system didn’t just fail; it redefined failure as success.

There’s a robust academic literature on administrative evil for those wanting to understand this better.

But let’s be clear: this isn’t just an academic exercise.

Real people—predominantly Māori and Pacific children, disabled people, and the poor—suffered real harm while bureaucrats shuffled papers and ministers avoided responsibility.

The time for euphemisms and careful language is over.

We need to call this what it is: systemic, state-sanctioned abuse enabled by administrative structures that prioritise process over people.

If you are interested in the literature, here are some places to start:

Adams, G.B., & Balfour, D.L. (1998). Unmasking administrative evil. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Adams, G.B., Balfour, D.L., & Reed, G.E. (2006). Abu Ghraib, administrative evil and moral inversion: The value of “putting cruelty first.” Public Administration Review , 66 , 680-693.

Dubnick, M., & Justice, J. (2006). Accountability and the evil of administrative ethics. Administration and Society, 38, 236-267.

Staub, E. (1992). The roots of evil. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Zanetti, L. A., & Adams, G. B. (2000). In Service of the Leviathan: Democracy, Ethics and the Potential for Administrative Evil in the New Public Management. Administrative Theory & Praxis, 22(3), 534–554.