Examples and other links




When love becomes criminal
My Pint of Science talk took a particular view in order to explore one possible way to understand some kinds of offences, in particular contexts, a view that both would fit in with the theme of the session (Love and Other Drugs) and would promote the general, important idea that we need to think about events and behaviours, and try to understand them, rather than label them. My opinion is that a lot of labelling is unhelpful as it carries with it other consequences, one of which is that we start to believe that there is no understanding, or limited understanding, or one way of understanding. Without real understanding, which requires questioning and thinking, we can't change things. Sometimes this kind of questioning can lead to ruination. Quite recently a friend of mine has lost his job because he suggested we question some of the accepted explanations for political events. So asking questions can be unsettling and powerful.

I thought it might be useful to try to provide some examples and links for people who were interested in my Pint of Science presentation but wanted more information or pointers to things that could be read. Importantly the presentation was one strand, one view, and the links and ideas will cover a lot of ground and offer other ideas and views. It isn't all academic and carefully referenced, so be cautious in believing everything you read. So, you'll want to keep that Pint of Science open mind.

I'll try to group things sensibly. Anything linked to is not an endorsement of views, but things that I have found interesting (NB 'interesting' doesn't always mean 'good') and useful in some way, and if I do express any views they are my own and shouldn't be taken as the views of any of my colleagues or employers.

The main line of the argument was that it might be helpful, in some cases, to try to escape the labelling of offenders as weird, perverted, monsters, and to consider them and their behaviour within normal psychology. Part of the reason is that if we use labels not only do they imply other characteristics that might be unhelpful if we are thinking about protecting ourselves and others (e.g. if we think offenders are 'weird' we will only be vigilant towards those we perceive as 'weird') but we really don't have an explanatory framework for understanding 'monsters'. It makes the task of understanding and thus trying to offer support and opportunities to change more challenging. We also are still in the early stages of developing good explanations for offending behaviour - this is not to say we haven't made really useful progress, but the history of trying to understand offending behaviour is relatively recent, given that not that long ago we really weren't that concerned with providing interventions. The fact that in some places there is still the death penalty is, in my view, continuing proof that in some places, for some people, change is considered impossible (or doesn't outweigh the desire for revenge). For a view about whether the death penalty reduces crime you could read this.

Where we do have a much longer history of understanding is in pro-social human behaviour. There are theories of development and perception and memory and education and work and pilots and surgeons and adults and children and shopping and architecture and pregnancy and sexual attraction and relationships and dating and sex and computer gaming and music and magic and pretty much everything else. Psychology has got a lot of the human condition covered. This means that if we are able to perceive more novel, rarer behaviours, such as offending, making use of the wealth of psychological knowledge that we have about typical, common human behaviours, we can make use of those theories and test them and build interventions around them. We don't have to worry about monsters anymore. That's quite comforting, because who wants to live in a world that is populated by the inexplicable and the unpredictable? We'd quite reasonably be very nervous in such circumstances.

Of course, this is not to say that some things don't remain inexplicable and some things may be, or may appear, unpredictable. My idea is not that all offending can be explained in this way, but if we can make progress with some of it then we are making progress. Can we use our understanding of relationships, what they provide, how they drive us, to understand how love can (sometimes) become criminal? Is it possible that the need to develop or maintain relationships could drive people to behave in antisocial ways, be that stalking, sexual assault, voyeurism, theft? That's the idea I am sharing. Whether it was successful or not, well, I guess by the time you read this I might know. I only covered one small part, but if the idea is appealing then you could start to consider, can it be applied more widely. Again, not to all cases, but in some, and maybe in enough that it is an important consideration.

Another linked idea is that we might start to see some areas of criminality, or examples, as developing from what we might consider an area of strength - the interest in and desire for relationships. We can then start to reinterpret people, rather than seeing them as all bad, having a sense that they also possess positives that, if suitably redirected, could result in them being productive, non-risky members of society.

Importantly, we do know that the understanding we can gain about offending can result in interventions that reduce the risk of re-offending. It is not perfect, but neither are interventions that are aimed at reducing instances of anxiety and depression in all situations, with all people. My own clinical experience, working within the NHS, provides evidence of success with people who might be labelled as perverts and weirdos, and whom society might have given up on in the past. My clinical and academic colleagues have similar experiences. Organisations such as Lucy Faithful, Barnardos, The Prison Service, and NHS forensic services provide evidence-based programmes that have been shown to make a difference, a difference that is unlikely to spontaneously happen if we ignore the problem and the people, and assume that punishment is the key.

Thank you for coming along and if nothing else I hope you found something of interest in the talk and perhaps in the resources offered below. 
Useful websites


Links to media reports


Links to films that portray examples


Links to books that might be interesting


Links to journal papers that are interesting (may not be accessible to all)

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 If you are interested in any of our research you can look here for opportunities.


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