The System

The following piece was written by someone living in England. They mention the Probation Service, this is the same as Justice Social Work in Scotland. 

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The good news is that I have received early termination, an ominous term for a positive development. My early termination is from probation, which is lovely as a pat on the head but which makes no practical difference. The Probation Service is Elastoplast for a broken leg, although I believe it is more helpful to other offenders in other circumstances.

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I deserved punishment, but – to continue the physical metaphor – less a broken leg than a slapped wrist. You can’t do much with a broken leg, but it does give you a lot of time to sit and think. And this is a summary of my thoughts.

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I do not believe The System was actively malicious. I do believe that it was thoughtless and, once set in motion, pursued its own ends; and those ends are not those of abstract justice.

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The System is concerned with Law, not Justice. The problem arises when the operation of Law works against the interest of Justice, so that people can be both rightfully convicted yet also unjustly treated.

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The System can say, in all sincerity, that it did everything by the book. Yes indeed, but might the book be the issue?

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Firstly, The System wasn’t interested in my perspective. It wanted to hear my voice only in response to a position it had already determined. The System doesn’t want to know what happened, it wants to know if it can acquire sufficient evidence to support its position.

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The System will say that I had every opportunity to state my case. In theory, yes, but official police interviews are not the time to explain the bigger picture, especially when the suspect is under legal advisement to say nothing. Besides, the police aren’t interested in the bigger picture. And yes, I could have made my argument in court, at the cost of several thousand pounds and with the threat of imprisonment as a gun to my head. Perhaps I ought to have pursued abstract justice, but a trial is even less designed to establish justice than a police investigation.

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Even if I had been as guilty as charged, justice implies – in fact, is synonymous with – fairness. With proportionality. With a punishment that fits the crime. It is admittedly difficult to weigh offence against consequences but, in my experience, to be under investigation for nearly two years – with no job and precious little support – is already disproportionate punishment. And any conviction for a sexual offence, however mild, is an effective life sentence. Maybe the comparison is impossible, but the harm and suffering caused by The System far outweighs the harm I caused. And a lot of innocent people suffered as well as me.

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Whatever the Probation Service thinks it’s doing, it can’t change the cards it’s been dealt. The System has declared that you are your crime. Your life is entirely shaped by your offence. Apart from the rare occasions on which the criminal’s life really is crime, and he is thus an active danger to the community, the price paid is more than the damage caused. That may be Law, but it isn’t Justice.

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More terrible is the effect on the offender, who is encouraged to believe the worst about himself. Every authority on mental health from the ancients onwards has stated that community and work are two key pillars of well-being. The System instils hopelessness and helplessness. If it had set out to incite mental illness, and thus make everything worse for everybody, it could hardly have done better.

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Even worse, if possible, is the deformation of the past. Because The System thinks in binaries, and imposes them on everybody, the past is retrospectively warped into the worst interpretation. Mixed motives are unknown to The System, which has no space for human complexity.

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Nobody – well, almost nobody – disputes the need to punish law-breaking. Burning down the house to get rid of the bedbugs is not the way to do it.