Over Christmas, I listened to this year’s Reith Lectures on Radio 4. For those of you who have not heard of them, this is an annual series of lectures given by experts in their field, set up back in 1948 by the BBC’s first director-general, a man called Lord Reith, with the aim of increasing public understanding and raising debate about a particular area of contemporary interest. You can look up the topics of past lectures yourselves, but this year’s set of four lectures are given by a lady called Gwen Adshead, a forensic psychotherapist, about her life’s work in trying to understand violence. She does not excuse violence, nor does she lack compassion towards its victims, nor does she seek to mitigate the consequences of violence; but she does ask challenging questions to try to understand it. In a nutshell, her conclusions are that there are most likely a set of circumstances and conditions under which violence is likely to flourish – and that it is the job of every human being to set up protecting factors against such a position. Practising good behaviour and compassion towards others is the best form of protective behaviour. We all aim, of course, I hope, to do that every day.
At around the same time last month, I went to spend time with the Governor of Lewes Prison in Sussex. I had not been to a prison before, and in reality, I did not make it deep into this one, but I was still struck by the fact that you had to go through six huge, heavy, locked doors just to reach the Governor’s office. I went because I was interested in what he was up to. Lewes prison had had the most awful inspection report a few months before he first took over and, after only a year in office, a follow-up inspection indicated that he appeared to be turning things around. He was indeed a remarkable man. His own prison is what is called a local category B prison – meaning that most of his prisoners are short-term and on remand, i.e. they are awaiting sentencing by the courts or awaiting the court case itself. At the time of the latest inspection, 82% of prisoners had been there for less than six months. When the Governor took over, there had been a lot of violence, both among prisoners and between prisoners and staff. There was now almost none. Having listened to him for 90 minutes, it was clear that the reason for this is that he had not given up on any of the prisoners – and he insisted that his staff did not either. Yes, some of them had done the most awful things; but, in the same way as Adshead had done in her Reith lectures, he saw his prisoners as human beings, whose particular circumstances very often had led them into a place they did not want to be. He could see that humanity is frail and susceptible, and there was a palpable sense that it could happen to anybody. He even put a figure on it – it is true, he said, that some people in here are awful enough that it is hard to see the good, but, he believed, 95% of the people in here are not bad people. It was this attitude which was turning people’s lives around. He had created over 400 jobs for the 600 prisoners to keep them occupied and productive. A team of prisoners called the LAMFs, most of whom were craftsmen in their lives outside prison, and led by a remarkable lady prison officer, had laid a whole new floor in one of the prison blocks for only £14,000 (when the Governor had been quoted £180,000). So proud of it they were that they policed it themselves afterwards. The staff were reinvigorated. The compassion, care, and belief in humanity, even in the most dire of places, was inspiring.
The reason I got interested in this in the first place was a talk by a man called John Hoskison when I was teaching in Oxford. The Upper Sixth will have heard him speak here, as we got him to come here after I heard him speak myself. John’s background was professional golf – and he was good, playing alongside golf greats like Seve Ballesteros and Nick Faldo, and also leading England in the European Team Championships, and twice representing Europe in the PGA Cup matches against the USA. One evening, he was persuaded to have a drink at his golf club by his Chairman, even though he did not drink; he drove home down some country lanes and killed a young lady on a bike, as he rounded a bend. He went to prison for three years, and his talk is about what it is like to be in prison as a ‘normal bloke’. It is a terrifying talk – and, if you can help it at all, I do not recommend risking going to prison at any stage of your life! It is absolutely not worth having a drink before you drive. However, John was kept going by some remarkable acts of humanity, not least from the parents of the girl he killed, who wrote him a long letter forgiving him, and even pleaded for clemency in his court case. They, like the Governor of Lewes Prison and the Reith Lecturer, but at an even more extreme level, could find the humanity in everyone.
There is a temptation when things go wrong to lock people up and throw the key away; in our daily life now, which seems well removed from prisons, the equivalent might be cancel culture. The idea behind cancel culture is that because somebody has done something wrong (or been perceived to have done wrong), nobody should give that person the time of day. This is plainly wrong – because everyone makes mistakes. I have always had that problem with the way fans and players treat football referees, for example – a referee’s mistakes are hit upon with extreme vitriol, often by the left back who has made more mistakes in 90 minutes than any referee ever will! Is this the sort of society we want to encourage? I doubt it – we should not have to live in fear of being cancelled, vilified, rejected – so it is up to us all, every one of you and I, to try to make sure that we do our bit to change it. Don’t seek to be higher and mightier than the person next to you – he will make mistakes, yes; but so will you. Find ways to reach out to and believe in people who have done things wrong. Look for the humanity in everyone, and seek to be humble in the way you do so.
I leave the last message to Winston Churchill. When he was Home Secretary in 1910 in Asquith’s government, Churchill claimed that a country’s treatment of its most vulnerable people reflected the very health of the country itself. He said:
“We must not forget that when every material improvement has been affected in prisons, when the temperature has been rightly adjusted, when the proper food to maintain health and strength has been given, when the doctors, chaplains, and prison visitors have come and gone, the convict stands deprived of everything that a free man calls life. We must not forget that all these improvements, which are sometimes sales to our consciences, do not change that position.
The mood and temper of the public in regard to the treatment of crime and criminals is one of the most unfailing tests of the civilization of any country. A calm and dispassionate recognition of the rights of the accused against the state and even of convicted criminals against the state, a constant heart searching by all charged with the duty of punishment, a desire and eagerness to rehabilitate in the world of industry all of those who have paid their dues in the hard coinage of punishment, tireless efforts towards the discovery of curative and regenerating processes and an unfaltering faith that there is a treasure, if only you can find it, in the heart of every person – these are the symbols which, in the treatment of crime and criminals, mark and measure the stored up strength of a nation, and are the sign and proof of the living virtue in it.”
