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Published: 08 August 2011

The shooting dead of Mark Duggan by police in Tottenham, while attempting to carry out an arrest, has drawn a cry for justice by some and has been the catalyst for mindless violence for others.

Forty-eight hours after the incident, 300 people gathered for a peaceful demonstration outside the Tottenham police station, after marching from Broadwater Farm estate. They were asking for justice for Mr. Duggan and his family, prompted by the perception that questions were seemingly not being answered by the authorities.

The peaceful demonstration turned violent. The ensuing night of riots also left people homeless, vehicles as charred wrecks, buildings gutted by fire and shops looted.

It took place in a part of London where resentment by some against the police had been building following the incident of which the circumstances may not be fully understood until an Independent Police Complaints Commission investigation is completed.

Was the cry for justice hijacked by those with a much more malevolent intent and what do we mean when we call for 'justice'?

Justice is the name given to the universal law or power which safeguards and maintains the natural rights of the individual against exploitation, abuse and disrespect.

Justice tells us to respect the individual’s rights and freedoms: when we are only concerned with our own rights and do not respect the others’ rights to personal expression and happiness, it is simply a matter of time before we also lose our own rights. Justice is naturally maintained when rights are balanced with responsibilities. Of course, both parties – here the police as well as protesters - have rights as well as responsibilities!

As we saw in Tottenham, violence destroys the sanctity of justice. Such justice with underlying motives of revenge, hatred or greed is a contradiction in terms. Sometimes uprisings against oppression escalate into unmitigated violence when the oppressed stand up against the oppressor but misuse their position and camouflage revenge by falsely calling it justice.

Man-made justice is destructive and preferential. True, natural justice, inherent as a principle of life, maintains peace and order. No one human being has the right to take justice into his own hands. Indeed, to join in or to be indifferent to whatever kind of violence is imposed on others robs us of our own dignity and rights.

True justice can only be maintained when everyone respects each other and cares for the rights and well-being of the individual and the collective. This is why the creation and maintenance of community is imperative. At the individual as well as the collective level, this requires attention, tolerance and acceptance, as well as acknowledgement of diversity, stepping outside of our personal mental box, and offering the hand of cooperation.

Justice is universal and absolute in its application. Perhaps now is the time to offer her our fullest support.

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Published: 16 July 2011

The most important task you can be asked to perform for your country is to go to war on its behalf, without questioning the validity or worth of the fight, and be prepared to die.

The second most important task your country can ask of you is to care for those whose actions have been deemed so bad, so shameful, they cannot any longer be allowed to live within the community, and so they must be cast from sight.

When we discuss the meaning and worth of imprisonment it must not be dealt with lightly. Unfortunately, we seem to be so ambivalent about this that we are unable to decide what imprisonment should be about; what it should be for.

Right now we lock up lots of people, at younger ages, and in crumbling conditions, with annual budget cuts, yet expect them to leave better equipped and rehabilitated. This when 70% of them can barely read or write and the same figure have some kind of mental health issue, often manifesting itself in violence to others or themselves.

Is it enough just to punish and, in doing so, make that harsh enough to deter future actions? Or should it be about repair of both the person and those who have been harmed?

Is it about vengeance?

What do people mean when they say there should be more discipline in prisons? I never know how to respond to that.

It makes the job of working in prison difficult when every time an election is coming up the parties vie with each other to see who can sound the harshest about crime. Every time there is a new Home Secretary we wait to see what will change. Career politicians spend a short period as Prisons Minister, tinker and talk a little then move on to Education, or Health.

Have we really figured out what we want prisons to achieve and how best to achieve that?

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Published: 16 July 2011

At the ‘Spirituality in Prison’ seminar, ‘The Art of Decision-making,’ Camilla Carr spoke of her experiences of psychological torture and rape while held hostage in Chechnya for 14 months. When she talked of forgiveness, she had a very clear vision of what that meant for her. Several times she said it was about ‘letting go, and moving on.’ Can different people see forgiveness in different ways?

One man, who lost his daughter in the Enniskillen bombing, talked within hours of the tragedy of forgiving her killers. I wonder if it meant the same for him. And if it is, what exactly is it you are letting go of? It cannot be the memories can it?

To forgive is it enough to decide against revenge, to fight the feelings of anger and hate? Or must I make an effort to care, even love, those who have harmed me?

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Published: 16 July 2011

On 4^th April 2011 it will be two years since the occasion when two young brothers, aged 10 and 11, caused grievous bodily harm with intent to two other boys of a similar age in Edlington, near Doncaster, South Yorkshire, a crime that was headlining for some time.

Continuing the question, what are our prisons for, Wendy Marshall, co-founder of Hope Mountain, (www.hopemountain.org.uk) a not-for-profit organisation, offers a reflective thought following those events.

The need to blame

“The media coverage of the Doncaster boys who abused two other children drew vast and varied comment – but most of it had one thing in common - the need to blame.  It had to be someone’s fault, the reasoning goes, so let’s find who it is and then we can all rest.   Some were blaming the social workers, some the parents, others the politicians - they must have had something to do with it. Maybe it was the Mayor for appointing a pie-man to run its children’s services.

In this case, as in many before, when the blood-letting is over, when the anger has subsided, are we left with a sustained desire to really understand the problem and, in doing so, find a solution?  Thankfully the media did move on from simply demonising the two perpetrators of these appalling crimes to a willingness to ask, ‘why did these boys turn out like that?’

Research (Positive Psychology) is revealing that neglected children have not had the nurturing experiences needed for areas of the brain to develop, so enable them to control their emotions and behaviour.  Doesn’t it make sense that if a child is brought up with little care or respect, they may not know how to care or respect others.  If they have been treated more like a thing than a human being, it seems fairly obvious that they may have learned to treat others as things rather than human beings. And if they are shouted at, abused, and their feelings ignored, they may become adept at shouting, fighting, abusing and disregarding the feelings of others.  A little reflection and a desire to understand will lead most anyone to these conclusions.

So we trace the problem back one generation, and find that the parents of these anti-social children were neglectful. How did the parents become so dysfunctional?  Using the same reasoning, we find they too may well have been damaged from their own neglected childhood.

It seems to me that if your aim is just to find someone to blame, you will always get the satisfaction you seek.  However, you may not find the solution.  The solution lies in our willingness to understand, and to exercise one or our greatest human assets – empathy.

An Empathetic Approach

When I worked with children in care 30 years ago, as a residential care worker, at first, try as I might, I couldn’t stop being judgemental of the children’s bad behaviour …. until I came to know the home life they had come from! Then, I couldn’t help wondering how I would have turned out if I had been through these young peoples experience of life. If you were to reflect on this same question, if you were to imagine yourself brought up in a chaotic, neglectful and violent household, how do you think you might have turned out?

Look at the pattern. Children who suffer abuse or neglect in childhood are more likely to become offenders.   As a group, offenders have lower literacy levels than the rest of the population and poor mood control, leading to problems with anger.  Neglectful upbringing commonly leads to impaired brain functioning which results in poor mood control that, in turn, adversely affects concentration ability in school, behaviour modification and ability to develop empathy.  The ability to do well in life and have good relationships is severely compromised. Some believe that early neglect and abuse damages a child permanently.

Yes, there are windows of time in our development that are primed for us to absorb deeply and become imprinted by our environment – for good or bad.  But research also suggests the brain is much more plastic than we ever thought and has vast capacity to learn, unlearn and move on.  Some may need more patience and support than others but people can move on and grow.   It all depends how far we are prepared to go to understand and help those whose life experience has been so much less fortunate than our own.  At any point we can fall back on the short-lived satisfaction of judging others or we can take time to reflect a little, try to understand, put ourselves in another’s shoes.

And where will all this compassion lead?  There is always the worry that if we reduce in any way the punishment meted out for criminal behaviour there won’t be any discouragement for crime.  But if we really want to cure the problem, perhaps its time to look around and see the exceptional resources we already have!

The Solutions Are Already Out There

People like Camilla Batmanghelidjh, founder of the Kids Company, Maura Jackson, who has worked to create turn-around environments to help women reduce re-offending through Home Office initiatives, or Dan Hughes who has done so much to create successful therapeutic approaches for neglected children.  Grass roots workers in Youth Offending teams, Parent Support Advisors self organising to set up innovative groups to help failing children, or staff in Family Intervention Projects around the UK.  Not to mention the innovative prison workers, social workers, chaplains and volunteers who are quietly doing amazing work unknown to the majority, day after day helping to turn people’s lives around. There is a tremendous amount of commitment and compassion out there already making a difference.  There may not presently be enough of these people, but they are there!

If politicians and media focussed their attention on seeking out these innovators in social care and therapeutic interventions, it wouldn’t take too long to find what works and how best to train practitioners in these approaches. Many solutions are already out there.  Granted, the scale of the problem is large and has probably been steadily building for generations.  But the very existence of innovative workers, who know how to effect lasting change in people who have been given up on by the rest of society, gives us reason to be very optimistic.”