This month has been a shock to the system with the attempted assassination of Donald Trump and the new UK government assigning prisons emergency measures.

Prime Minister and ex-human rights lawyer Keir Starmer, has appointed James Timpson, CEO of the key-cutting chain that employs ex-criminals, as Minister of Prisons. Timpson complains: ‘we are addicted to punishment’ (1).

I wonder why the UK legal system ignores the behavioural sciences, which show positive reinforcement (rewarding good behaviour) is better at bringing about desired behaviour than punishment, as while the latter may work short-term, it risks negative effects such as hostility and anti-social behaviour (linked to crime) (2,3,8).

Norway shifted focus to rehabilitation over punishment more than two decades ago, considering crime to be a symptom of a ‘diseased’ environment, and this approach reduced re-offending rates sharply (4).

‘Prevention is better than cure’, a centuries old proverb, now a fundamental of the medical sciences, also seems to be pretty much overlooked when it comes to UK law. For example, basic law is not routinely taught in UK schools.

On Quora, a Canadian states he was taught the subject ‘How to stay out of jail’ at school. To me as a Brit this sounds like it could be a joke (is he being serious?) or a Monopoly board game option, so far removed from my school experience it is.

Some people say we should automatically know ‘right’ from ‘wrong’, but try telling that to Paul Crowther, who was sacked from his job and convicted for throwing banana salted caramel milkshake at politician Nigel Farage, after which he stated the act was ‘a right of protest’, and better than the ‘bile and racism’ of Farage (5).

I’m not condoning it, simply observing that he didn’t seem to be aware that his political ‘protest’ is defined as a ‘crime’ (common assault, in case you didn’t know).

Then there was Jacob Dowdle on his last day of school’s ‘prank day’ who threw a custard pie in a teacher’s face (ouch) and the school expelled him and reported him to the police, all which have consequences for his education and job prospects (6).

Wouldn’t it have been better just to have previously taught him an educational course stating that packets of sausage-rolls can be classed as weapons, and despite clowns are allowed to throw custard pies at people, the rest of us are not?

Instead of clarifying confusing legal concepts, necessary for survival (you never know) obscure subjects such as Chemistry are deemed far more important in UK education. I achieved an A-grade in A’Level Chemistry (to get into medical school) and I still can’t see much point in it, unless you want to be a chemist.

In the film Avatar: the Way of Water (2022) a teen punches another, and after he explains to his father (THE HERO) that this was because the victim was taunting his sister, THE HERO seems to accepts this. There is no mention that in the real world this is a crime that could get you thrown in prison. The film has a UK 12 rating.

If a teen punches someone, and is permanently harmed by a criminal record and/or being placed in a cage for a year, can the teen counteract: a 460 million dollar movie confused me? Nobody taught me? A bully kept targeting me, I didn’t know what to do?

No. It has already been defined as a ‘crime’. Not knowing is not a defence in law, the teen is the ‘wrong-un‘. Can this negativity lead to resentment and more crime?

Would it be better to educate, that a punch could accidentally kill someone? To listen instead of silence. To say the film is for profit and doesn’t care about you. We will mediate debate between you and the other. Here are better ways, don’t do it again. A Restorative Justice Dialogue?

Of course most people want murderers (intentional killers) separated from us for public safety (7) but what about lesser crimes, which make up the majority of offenders?

If you go into a prison it’s full of people who are poor, people who’ve been brought up in poverty. People who have never had the chances that I’ve had in life, often have dysfunctional families, moved around a lot, in the care system…And it’s just a self fulfilling prophecy, which is they know they’re going to end up in prison.

James Timpson (The Big Issue, July 2024)

Grandmother Christine McDonald committed suicide after being sent to prison for stealing cheese and shampoo (as someone who has never shoplifted I’m assuming you need some kind of financial or psychological help if you steal cheese, but maybe I’m naive). Her requests for assistance from opiate withdrawal were ignored (8).

Research suggests crime is rooted in/driven by harm the offender has experienced (9), so causing more also risks creating an amplifying loop (see previous blog post).

Prevention (education, addressing causes such as mental health issues/substance abuse), dialogue and prioritising rehabilitation may reduce this risk.

Not everyone agrees. An acquaintance tells me some people are just horrible and love themselves and there is no getting through to them. In the USA, California’s tough ‘three-strikes’ laws led to a person being imprisoned for life for stealing a slice of pizza (9) a huge burden on taxpayers money. At the hairdressers a sweet old lady told me it should be a crime not to know if something is a crime (!).

In the USA, in 40 years, what can be regarded as crime has increased from 3000 to about 5000 acts. Officials cannot count an exact figure and it’s estimated the average American unknowingly commits three ‘felonies’ (serious crimes) a day (11). This is known as over-criminalisation, a topic I may include in my feature film and highlighted by US attorney Emily Baxter in We Are All Criminals: 1 in 4 people has a criminal record, 4 in 4 have a criminal history (2018).

I remember shock when UK law changed so that if a patient dies via disease, and the death involves a mistake (eg. delay of treatment) the doctor can be convicted of manslaughter. It had been a civil (monetary compensation) offence, but once changed, mostly coloured doctors were imprisoned. System errors (computer malfunction, lack of availability of operating rooms, staff shortages), were ignored.

It became obvious that scapegoating individuals for deaths while working in suboptimal controlled environments, did nothing to address underlying causes, so the law expanded to include corporate manslaughter. But where does this end? Should the government be imprisoned for not providing enough funds to the NHS?

Of course there is need for accountability and compensation, but imprisoning individuals who make honest mistakes in deficient conditions, is not a Just Culture.

A side effect of powerlessness (including that induced by the COVID pandemic) can be proliferation of conspiracy theories. When more people lose trust in officials and rules, this could eventually create more risk of order breaking down (12).

What do we want the criminal law to be? Do we want to keep its blame culture, or have ‘just culture’ (as practised by the aviation industry) or ‘no-blame culture’ (as advocated by neuroscientist Robert Sopolsky)? Do we want it to evolve logically or arbitrarily? And should we ask of judge and victim and offender together –

What is it that will assist away from committing the ‘crime’? What is the scientific evidence? What is your lived experience? Tell us, we want to know.

References

1. Greg Barradale (July 9 2024). How Starmer’s new prisons minister James Timpson wants to change the way we lock people up. Big Issue.
2. Diane Lang and OpenStax (2020). 1940’s: Skinner. Iowa State University Digital Press.
3. Amanda Beltrani. Reinforcement and punishment. Palo Alto University. concept.paloaltou.edu
4. BBC (7 June 2019). How Norway turns criminals into good neighbours. bbc.co.uk
5. BBC (18 June 2019). Nigel Farage milkshake attack: Newcastle man told to pay compensation. bbc.co.uk
6. Jake Wallis Simpson (28 May 2014). Throwing a custard pie is a childish prank, not a criminal assault. The Telegraph.
7. Allegra McLeod (2015) Prison Abolition and Grounded Justice. Georgetown University Law Center.
8. Bhatt Murphy (10 May 2024). Christine McDonald. Jury finds neglect led to self-inflicted death at HMP Styal. inquest.org.uk
9. Children and Young People’s Centre for Justice (30 March 2023). The Victim-or-Perpetrator Dichotomy harms both those who commit crime and those who suffer it. cycj.org.uk
10. Eric Slater (March 3 1995). Pizza Thief Receives Sentence of 25 years to Life in Prison. Los Angeles Times.
11. Patrick McLaughlin, Lisa Palagashvili (17 January 2023). Counting the Code: How Many Criminal Laws Has Congress Created? Mercatus Center, George Mason University. mercatus.org
12. Karen M Douglas and Jan-Willem van Prooijen (2018). Belief in conspiracy theories: Basic principles of an emerging research domain. European Journal of Psychology 48(7): 897-90
13. All photography/video by Acacia Khonji including feature image of sculpture by Drew Edwards.