Victims (yet again)

I don’t recall saying that I would avoid topics which may be uncomfortable, controversial or even offensive.  Putting the full weight of the State on a person and throwing them into prison is a profound act. It is to expel them from their community and to deliberately inflict suffering. Given the seriousness of this, then confining the debate to some comfortable island, to bow to sacred cows, or to merely bandy trite stereotypes around would be cowardly and pointless. As I have a voice, it would be pure ego to use it merely to flatter you or to polish my own image. As the only regular prison blogger in this country then I feel a responsibility to strip away the detritus that often passes for penological debate and attempt to deal with some of the difficult issues. This clearly makes some readers uncomfortable.


One of the most sensitive issues is that of the victims of crime. Those who have followed the blog from its early days will understand that I decline to be led by popular opinion on victims’ issues. At the same time, I refuse to poke at victims’ issues merely to provoke outrage. There are genuine issues to debate and I will on occasion raise them.

This may seem to be indecent and I'm not insensitive to that. People whose lives have been wrecked by crime should receive support and the utmost consideration as indiv­iduals. Human suffering should provoke our empathy.

As a collective, some victims have grouped to form a political lobby whose effects are visible throughout the criminal justice system. Individual victims may - from plain decency - be left in peace but political lobby groups are legitimate targets for debate or criticism. The alternative is to abandon policy-making to the hands of a particular group, whose agenda may not be for the good of the wider society.

Such criticism may seem unseemly. That is the price of debate. That such subjects are being analysed by a murderer seems to be plain crass or foolish, as one commenter alleges. That may be so.

As a member of a society whose criminal justice system is being warped by victims lobbying, I maintain that I have every right to join the debate. Justice should, after all, belong to all of us. As a prisoner whose daily living conditions and progress to release are affected by victims lobbying efforts, I insist that I have a perfect right to be heard. And as a man who lost his sister to a violent crime I myself am a victim and on that basis I feel it should not be viewed as improper that I have a voice. Unless only "nice" victims are allowed to speak?

In some sense I may be uniquely placed to speak on such issues. As the singular prison blogger, and as both the perpetrator and victim of homicidal crime, I may offer a bridge that could span the chasms in these debates.  And if some readers find such debate uncomfortable I can only hope that they examine their beliefs.

An uncomfortable  debate  always holds the potential  to be  a  deeply productive  one  and this blog always  prefers  to  generate   light  rather  than  heat.

Criminals and Victims

Why is criminal justice treated as if it were a zero-sum game, that there must be the opposed forces of criminal and victims?

It seems that for every policy that effects criminal justice, and prisons in particular, there is some call that somehow it deprives victims of something. Anything! As if a policy that seems to benefit cons must automatically take something away from victims.

Here's a thought. That it is possible to treat prisoners with decency AND treat victims with empathy and support. These are not opposing aims, the one does not detract from the other.

Unless...should victims determine the fate of those who transgress against them? As was the inclination of the last government. Or should it be accepted that criminals and victims both have an interest in Justice, even if the outcome in the individual case leaves all involved unhappy?

Victims

Some, I gather, have taken the time to read what I have written, here and there, on the subject of victims of crime. And then misunderstood me. The blame for this must, largely, rest with me. After all, a writer who fails to properly convey his meaning is doing a pretty shoddy job, no?

To clarify, then. I have no inherent problem with victims of crime. They are entitled to their suffering and their opinions. It is only reasonable that their suffering should, if possible, be ameliorated. If not by the criminal, then by society as a whole. That there is a Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority is hardly a bad thing, and that Victims Support exists to guide and assist victims through the criminal justice maze is equally unobjectionable. Victims should be supported and they should be compensated.

My objections, if such they are, relate to the political activities of victims and their cultural elevation. Being a victims does not make you an expert on crime, not even the one you have suffered from. It does not give you any special insight into criminology, sociology or penology. And as being a victim gives no special insight or expertise, it follows that the vocal opinions of some victims should have no more status than, for instance, my opinions.

Despite this, the body politic and their media shadows have taken to embracing high-profile victims...that profile being determined by media interest. For every Sara Payne, there are hundreds of others who the media ignore. And so government, in turn, ignores them.

The high profile victims then set about making policy demands. They don't campaign for broad aims, they actually prescribe the minutiae of specific policies they want to see enacted. And, sometimes, they get their way. That the policies they demand may be criminological nonsense, or that they may even lead to greater crimes or injustices, is of no interest. Not to the victims, nor to their political and media sponsors.

It is in this area that I part ways with victims. No particular group, let alone an ill informed one, should determine public policy. No matter how sympathetic these individuals may be, they must not be allowed to warp the criminal justice process in their sectional interests.

Justice is a matter for the whole of society and it is a fragile thing. To attempt to warp the system in favour of one party should be anathema. So I make this argument, and I repeat it in various writings. If this is seen as being anti-victim, I must stress that it is not intended to be. All it means is that victims shouldn't get a free pass into the policy arena and that their ideas and demands should be as open to debate as any other.