Sasa’a le fafao?: Approaches to Return and Reintegration of Criminal Deportees (Returnees) into Samoa

Abstract

Pacific Island states face high levels of criminal deportations arriving from the United States, Australia and New Zealand—with the expectation that returnees will simply reintegrate. However, reintegration into a country that individuals often do not remember, or know the language or cutural protocols of, can be difficult. Returnees may face social stigma and/or subsequent surveillance and legal requirements on their return: the latter known in scholarly literature as ‘crimmigration creep’. In this article, we examine the case of Samoa, which has taken a unique culture-centric approach to reintegration through the establishment of the quasi-governmental Samoa Returnees Charitable Trust, rejecting external ‘one-size-fits-all’ approaches. We argue that this exertion of Samoa’s agency has led to a delay in crimmigration creep.